REFORGED

BOLT EATERS TRILOGY BOOK 2

Isaac Hooke

For my Mother

My greatest, most devoted fan

Contents

Books by Isaac Hooke

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

In Closing

Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke

All rights reserved.

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

www.IsaacHooke.com

Books by Isaac Hooke

Military Science Fiction

Bolt Eaters Trilogy

Reactivated

Reforged

Redeemed

Battle Harem

Battle Harem 1

Battle Harem 2

Battle Harem 3

AI Reborn Trilogy

Refurbished

Reloaded

Rebooted

ATLAS Trilogy

(published by 47North)

ATLAS

ATLAS 2

ATLAS 3

Alien War Trilogy

Hoplite

Zeus

Titan

Argonauts

Bug Hunt

You Are Prey

Alien Empress

Quantum Predation

Robot Dust Bunnies

City of Phants

Rade’s Fury

Mechs vs. Dinosaurs

A Captain's Crucible

Flagship

Test of Mettle

Cradle of War

Planet Killer

Worlds at War

Space Opera

Star Warrior Quadrilogy

Star Warrior

Bender of Worlds

He Who Crosses Death

Doom Wielder

Science Fiction

The Forever Gate Series

The Dream

A Second Chance

The Mirror Breaks

They Have Wakened Death

I Have Seen Forever

Rebirth

Walls of Steel

The Pendulum Swings

The Last Stand

Thrillers

The Ethan Galaal Series

Clandestine

A Cold Day in Mosul

Terminal Phase

Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.

1

Eric was bound to the thick trunk of an alien tree. A silky gunk wrapped his wrists, ankles, and waist, holding him fast. The same substance also stopped up his weapons, preventing him from firing. The other Bolt Eaters were similarly secured around him, glued to the wiry undergrowth, nearby logs and boulders, or the snowy ground itself.

The bioweapons that had sourced the material—flying beasts known as Dragonworms—hovered in the background, their dragonfly-like wings keeping their wormlike bodies aloft. A red vertical line ran down the length of their hooked, white bodies, marking them as fully in the control of the Banthar.

The support units with Eric’s team—the eight M-54 tanks, the twenty Savage S-34 combat robots, the two Ravager mechs, and even the two Raven over-the-hill-recon scouts, had turned against the team. Manticore, a former Bolt Eater, thought lost in the Caucasus Mountains twenty years ago, had surreptitiously installed his AI core into one of those Ravagers before the mission, and had hacked the remaining autonomous units.

Why? Manticore had gone insane and joined the aliens.

Lurking beneath the Dragonworms, the support units stood in a circle around the trapped Bolt Eaters with their weapons trained on them. Manticore was at their head.

Beyond them, alien tanks rolled forward on articulated tracks from all sides. Instead of gun emplacements, these tanks were topped by several metallic tentacles tipped with deadly energy beam generators.

Eric switched to a private band that included only his other Bolt Eaters. He amped up his time sense to max so that reality seemed to freeze around him.

“Well this is quite a pickle we’re in,” Mickey said before he could speak.

“A pickle, huh?” Slate said. “Don’t use your lame twentieth-century slang talk on us. Just say it like it is: we’re in deep shit.”

“Those bioweapons made a mistake,” Eric said, preempting further discussion. And he explained the leeway the Dragonworms had given him.

Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Dunnigan had similar leeway, but the rest of the Bolt Eaters unfortunately did not.

“We’re going to need a distraction,” Dunnigan said.

“I can help with that,” Slate said. “I got some leeway, too. Just not the same as you.”

“All right, I wish the rest of us could join you four,” Marlborough said. “Good luck. Get as far away from here as you can.”

“We’re coming back for you,” Eric said.

“No,” Marlborough said. “If you can, you have to find a way to get home. Bring reinforcements. Then you can come back for us.”

Eric returned his time sense to normal. He watched as the tentacled tanks continued their approach. Some of them had already reached the outskirts of the enclosing support troops, and shoved their way past.

“Hey Manticore, got a present for you, bitch,” Slate said.

The left leg of Slate’s mech opened up—the bioweapons had neglected to wrap it in their silky gunk. Repair drones dove forward, each one of them carrying an explosive charge.

“Mother f—” Manticore dove to the side, firing his energy cannon at the small drones in rapid succession. The smaller Savages also opened fire.

The drones zig-zagged in a blur. One impacted a Savage, and the charge detonated, leaving behind a mangled mess.

Eric switched to Bullet Time and ejected. That was the mistake the bioweapons had made: they’d bound up most of his body, but had failed to wrap their organic nets around his cockpit hatch.

His smaller Cicada unit emerged, and he grabbed one of the rungs next to the hatch as he unfolded, and swung his body toward the tree. He slammed the fingers of the combat robot into the bark, forming his own handholds, and began climbing. He moved quickly, adapting easily to the Cicada body; some of the Savages targeted him, but only a few, because the drones were continuing their distraction.

Eric unfolded the L-52 laser from his forearm and fired at one of those Savages, and then continued his climb, moving in a zig-zag pattern.

Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Dunnigan had similarly jettisoned, and were scaling other trees nearby.

Some of the Dragonworms reacted now as well, and fired the organic lasers from their mouths at the trees. Though Eric couldn’t see the actual beams, he knew the lasers were impacting because of the burn holes that appeared in the wood around him.

He continued climbing, as rapidly as he was able. Below, more explosions went off as the last of the repair drones were taken down.

As he neared the canopy, one of the bigger Dragonworms, this one equipped with a metal helmet and mandibles made of plasma, clashed those mandibles together and released a beam of energy at him; Eric was forced to climb around to the far side of the tree. But the tree trunk was relatively thin at his current height, and the beam cut right through the trunk. The loose segment tilted sideways, however the branches above him snagged in the boughs of the adjacent trees, and halted his descent.

Eric clambered into those grid-like branches as fast as he was able and pulled himself into the boughs of the tree beside him just as the severed top broke free and plunged to the forest floor below. He continued upward until he was past the screen of hexagonal blue leaves, and above the canopy proper. He could see the blue sea formed by those boughs spreading out on all sides around him.

In the distance, to the north, he spotted five stadium-shaped airships en route to the site.

He immediately crouched down, wanting to stay slightly below the treetops to avoid being targeted by any long-range lasers those airships might have.

“We can’t stay here!” Eric said.

“No shit,” Crusher said, popping up through the boughs nearby.

Staying low, Eric turned to the south, and leaped between the protruding branches in Bullet Time. Sometimes he overestimated how much weight his target branch could take, and broke it, momentarily plunging through until he grabbed onto another branch. In such situations, he promptly swung himself upward onto the next, feeling for all the world like some robot monkey.

The Dragonworm bioweapons broke through the treetops behind him. They pursued in the air, firing their webs and lasers. Eric dodged to the left and right as he ran, gingerly stepping upon the branches in Bullet Time, and relying on his rear view camera feed to keep an eye on the enemy units.

He held his L-52 behind him and fired as he ran; the weapon was set to smart targeting mode, and the muzzle rotated to unleash powerful beams against different Dragonworms.

Energy beams from below ripped through the leaves and branches, no doubt sourced from the alien tanks. The occasional plasma and energy bolt also tore past, obviously fired by the support units lost to Manticore.

He glanced at his overhead map, and saw that Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Dunnigan were following his lead, and staying close.

He was also still receiving signals from the support units, and the other mechs. He quickly changed the friendly status of the support units to enemy, so that he’d stop transmitting his position to them.

“Don’t forget to mark Manticore and the other units as enemies!” Eric transmitted.

“Already done!” Crusher said.

One of the bigger Dragonworms emerged behind him, and fired its deadly plasma beam his way. Eric was forced to leap from tree to tree to avoid it. The beam cut a black swath through the boughs, leaving behind gaping trenches that allowed the units mirroring his flight below to better target him.

He swerved to the west, wanting to mess up that targeting, but then a big Dragonworm burst through the trees in front of him. It was about to cross its plasma beam mandibles to fire its deadly beam…

Brontosaurus appeared beside Eric and rapid-fired a pair of H-97 heavy lasers that completely engulfed both hands. He struck the Dragonworm in the mouth several times, and the wailing creature was forced back beneath the treetops.

“Thanks, I owe you one,” Eric said, continuing forward, away from the fallen worm.

“No you don’t,” Brontosaurus said. “Consider it a down payment on my part, for all the times you’ve saved my life!”

“How’d you find time to retrieve your 97s anyway?” Eric asked.

His avatar shrugged on the HUD. “My storage compartment wasn’t glued shut. I found time.”

Crusher joined Eric on the left side, and beyond her, Dunnigan. They all crouched low, trying to stay beneath the treetops as they leaped between the boughs, because the airships were still incoming.

The four of them continued moving away to the west. Brontosaurus’s heavy lasers did a good job deterring any remaining Dragonworms that decided to close. Meanwhile, the plasma and energy attacks from below occurred with far less frequency, until at last none came from that direction at all; the Dragonworm assaults also ceased soon thereafter.

“They’re recalling them,” Crusher said. Eric climbed slightly higher, so that he could overlook the treetops, and saw that all of the Dragonworms were returning. Apparently the Banthar decided it wasn’t worth it to continue sacrificing their bioweapons.

Eric couldn’t help but take a sucker shot then, targeting one of them in the back with his L-52, and when it howled, all the other bioweapons turned around and homed in on his position.

“Shit!” Eric ducked and led the Bolt Eaters away in a random direction. They remained just inside the boughs, and out of view from above.

He caught glimpses of the bioweapons occasionally as he moved from branch to branch, and took cover behind the hexagonal leaves to let them pass. When the Dragonworms couldn’t find them, they once more headed toward the rift site, which was about four hundred meters behind them.

“This time don’t fire on them!” Dunnigan said.

“I won’t,” Eric promised.

Eric paused, and climbed higher to peer above the treetops and watch the bioweapons retreat. The Dragonworms reached the rift site and dove beneath the canopy. The five airships were fast closing with the area.

“So what are we going to do now?” Brontosaurus asked.

“We could hang out here and wait until the rift home reappears,” Crusher said. “And then make a run for it.”

“There’s no way we’ll reach the rift,” Dunnigan said. “The Banthar will have a 24/7 watch in force.”

“But we have to try,” Crusher said.

“No, Dunnigan is right, we won’t reach it,” Eric said. “At least not in Cicadas. These units are essentially useless, especially if the Banthar leave behind any of those alien tanks to guard the rift, which will be shielded. We need our mechs back.”

The five airships reached the rift site, and hovered above the treetops. The Dragonworms reappeared, and took up positions around the craft.

“They’re certainly being cautious,” Brontosaurus said, “by placing those Dragonworms there. Considering that nothing we have at the moment can even penetrate the energy shields of those airships.”

“They’ve learned not to underestimate us,” Eric said. “A smart move, on their part.”

An airship maneuvered directly above the rent in the canopy a Dragonworm had made earlier when it had cut down the tree Eric had been climbing. The other airships assumed a defensive formation around that craft, placing their vessels at the four points of the compass. The Dragonworms remained in between them so that there was a solid defensive circle around it.

A bottom panel opened in the central craft, and some sort of broad, translucent energy beam emerged, vanishing into the forest below.

A moment later an object appeared in the middle of that beam, floating upward.

“Tractor beam,” Eric said.

“What?” Dunnigan asked.

“Never mind,” Eric replied. “A term from an old show I used to watch.”

He recognized the object being lifted by that beam as a Crab mech.

Bambi.

“We can’t let those airships take our friends,” Crusher said as Bambi disappeared inside the ship.

Eric didn’t know what to say to that.

A Devastator appeared, floating upward. It, too, vanished inside a moment later. From the hull damage, Eric thought it was Frogger.

More mechs appeared. Devastators. A Rhino. A Rambler.

“If that ship leaves, we’ll lose them forever,” Crusher said.

Eric closed his eyes by momentarily shutting down his cameras. When he reactivated them, he sighed.

“You’re right, of course,” Eric said. “We can’t let the Banthar take them. We’ll never see them again if we let the airship go. Move forward, Bolt Eaters. It’s time to hitch a ride.”

2

Moving from bough to bough, Eric and the others proceeded toward the airship that was swallowing their friends.

“How do you know we’ll even be able to penetrate the energy shield that surrounds the damn thing?” Brontosaurus transmitted.

“I’m hoping they had to turn it off to load the mechs.” Eric leaped underneath a bough, clipping one of his antennae and bending it backward slightly.

“And what if you’re wrong?” Crusher said.

Eric straightened the antenna and vaulted to the next branch. “Then we’ll be captured.”

“That’s what I liked about you, you never beat around the bush,” Crusher said.

“Beat around the what?” Dunnigan said.

“The bush,” Crusher said. “It’s a saying. Means he always comes straight to the point. I learned it from one of the classical movies Scorpion made me watch.”

“Oh, okay,” Dunnigan said. “I thought it might have something to do with beating off. Never mind! By the way, do you actually call him Scorpion in private?”

“No,” Crusher said. “But he calls me Crusher.”

“Old habit of mine.” Eric gazed over the treetops as he leaped to the next set of boughs; he caught sight of the airships. The closest craft was about a hundred meters away now. Another Devastator mech was caught in the tractor beam of the central airship, and was currently being loaded. He landed on the target branch and lost sight of the airships behind the treetops. “Besides, you told me you prefer the name Crusher over your real one.”

“And so I do,” Crusher said. “Just as Bambi prefers hers.”

“Ah, the military tries to tell us that we’re robots with minds of silicon and copper, that our neural networks contain nothing more than the patterns of our former humanity,” Dunnigan said. “And yet sometimes we’re more human than they are.”

“Just because we don’t like to be called by our real names?” Crusher said.

“No,” Dunnigan said. “Because we’re willing to risk our lives to save our brothers and sisters, when we could have gotten away scot free.”

Eric continued vaulting between branches, coming in from an angle that would take him between two of the outermost airships on guard. He passed underneath the Dragonworms that hovered there. One of them was a big one with plasma mandibles.

The creatures noticed him immediately.

He dove, vanishing into the lower boughs, as did the three Cicadas with him.

A plasma beam ripped into the branches above him. He wasn’t sure if it was sourced from the bigger Dragonworm, or from the airship itself.

He and the others continued swinging between the branches, staying just inside the boughs so that he wasn’t visible from above the treetops, or from the forest floor below.

A Dragonworm head smashed through the trees ahead, chomping down, barely missing him.

Eric swerved to the side and leaped past. He fired at the head with the P-21 plasma weapon embedded in his left arm. The point-blank shot penetrated deep into its skull cavity, and the creature collapsed. Its weight carried it down a few meters, until the body was firmly snagged by the remainder of the branches and it halted.

Eric reached one of the trees on the periphery of the opening in the canopy. The airship hovered overhead. A Devastator mech was being drawn inside by the tractor beam at that very moment.

Slate.

Eric leaped toward Slate, but froze, becoming suspended in midair as soon as he touched the outskirts of the tractor beam. He could see the alien tanks below, along with Manticore’s support units; they’d gathered around the perimeter of the tractor beam.

“What the jism!” Slate said. “Nicely done. You had your chance to get away and you went and got yourself captured instead. Brilliant, bitch, just brilliant.”

Eric felt something tug at his leg, and he was ripped from the beam.

He glanced at his feet as the branches blurred past: Crusher hung onto his ankles. She’d apparently vaulted from one of the nearby trees and grabbed onto him when she flew past.

“How did you avoid getting caught up by the tractor beam?” Eric asked her.

“Your feet were protruding,” Crusher said. She landed in the boughs and jerked to the left before finally releasing him. Behind Eric, the tree was ripped apart as plasma bolts and energy beams from the alien tanks and Manticore’s support units struck.

They joined up with Brontosaurus and Dunnigan, and looped back toward the opening in the canopy.

“This time, let’s not run headlong into the tractor beam, okay mate?” Dunnigan said.

“It’s one way inside the ship,” Eric said.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Brontosaurus said. “Enter that way, you’re frozen in place, a sitting duck for whatever the Banthar have waiting inside. We have to find another way.”

A Dragonworm broke through the trees above. The four Cicadas scattered, and then unleashed their weaponry at it. The creature shook with each impact, spasming under the blows, and then collapsed, plunging a few meters before catching on the surrounding branches.

Eric leaped onto its back and clambered up the body. To his tactile sensors, it felt cold and slimy to the touch. Slippery, too: he had to press down hard with his fingers, digging into the skin, just for purchase.

Operating in Bullet Time, he quickly made his way to the hooked tail at the top of the body, and then he leaped toward the next Dragonworm that was hovering just above.

That particular bioweapon decided to fire a silken net from its tail, but Eric had vaulted upward just in time, and the net missed.

He latched onto the body, and the creature began squirming wildly. He increased his time sense further, and amped up his servomotor output, and climbed onto its back. He glanced at his power levels, and saw that he was down to 52%. He was expecting it to be far lower, but it made some sense: his Cicada had the same solar panels as the Devastator mech he’d left behind, and although the surface area of those panels was smaller, his power requirements were far less. And he’d been charging all the times he was exposed to the sun above the treetops, like now.

He pulled himself closer to the head region, and then leaped off, toward the underside of the airship above and behind him. He held his breath as he approached, and half expected to slam into an energy field.

But no field materialized, confirming his theory that the shield had to be offline in order to use the tractor beam, and in moments he was latching onto the hull. He activated the magnetic mounts in his palms and ankles, and was relieved when he remained affixed to the surface: the material was magnetic. He attempted to press his fingers into the hull, but it was too dense for him to create his own hand or footholds.

He reduced the magnetic intensity on the right side of his body, and pulled himself higher before returning the intensity. He did the same with the left side, and in that way he crawled upward.

The other airships, and the Dragonworms, seemed reluctant to fire at him—didn’t want to harm their friend.

That said, one of the Dragonworms was coming in toward him. It’s big mandibles opened…

Eric released the magnet on his left arm, and swung his hand toward the Dragonworm. He fired a plasma bolt into its mouth, and a portion of the bioweapon’s head blew away. It instantly dropped, crashing through the trees below.

He continued upward. Small hexagonal superstructures protruded on occasion, and similar hexagonal areas provided hollows, but otherwise the surface was relatively smooth. If he didn’t have those magnets…

Brontosaurus, Crusher and Dunnigan had also reached the hull of the airship, and were similarly clambering across its surface.

“So what now?” Crusher said.

“Working on it,” Eric said.

The airship began to climb away from the forest—apparently it had already loaded up all the Bolt Eater mechs. The other four airships joined it, and the Dragonworms flew in escort.

Panels began to open along the surface of the airship around them.

Spheres, roughly the same shape as the scout units the aliens liked to deploy, but half the size, emerged from those openings. The spheres had deadly seeming muzzles protruding from the front, and rolled along the hull, perhaps via varying magnetic forces; those muzzles were on some sort of gyro, because they remained fixed, pointed at him, or the other Cicadas.

“Uh, I don’t like the looks of those,” Crusher said.

Eric pulled himself behind a small superstructure just as several of those spheres released energy bolts from their muzzles. The other Cicadas had similarly taken cover, either behind superstructures, or within hollows.

Eric released the magnetic attachment in his left arm, and aimed past the superstructure with his plasma weapon. He switched to the POV of its scope, and targeted one of the spheres.

Please don’t have a portable energy shield.

He fired, and was relieved when the plasma bolt struck, causing the sphere to drop away from the hull. He had to drop back in cover an instant later when a barrage of energy bolts released from other spheres nearby.

A panel opened just to the side of Eric.

Two spheres rolled onto the surface.

Releasing the magnetic attachments in his feet, while keeping his hand firmly secured to the hull, he swung his body and kicked both spheres like soccer balls. They flew away from the hull, and plunged to the treetops, vanishing within.

More spheres emerged, and he fired the plasma weapon embedded in his forearm, taking them down in rapid succession.

The panel began to close.

Eric shoved off from the superstructure and latched onto the panel, pulling himself inside. Before it could seal, he thrust his right arm and the L-52 laser attached to it into the opening on the deck, and the panel jammed. His arm was held fast, and he couldn’t move it.

He was inside a small staging compartment of some sort. It had ten of those spheres waiting there on the floor.

They all opened fired.

Eric thought he was done for, but this time, instead of energy bolts, they released webbing similar to that of the Dragonworms. The nets wrapped around his body, and pinned his remaining weapon arm to his side. The only part of him that wasn’t bound was his right arm, but it was trapped by the panel.

Beyond them, on the far side of the compartment, he saw what looked like a door. It had spiral markings that made him think it would open like an iris: if it actually was a door.

“Okay guys, I might have a way in,” Eric transmitted. “Make your way to my position. But you should know, there are a few spheres in here. They won’t be too happy to see you.”

Eric watched the green dots of his companions on the overhead map. Brontosaurus was the first to reach him.

“Hey there, buddy,” Brontosaurus said. “Nice of you to hold the door for me.”

“What are friends for?” Eric told him.

Crusher and Dunnigan arrived next. Dunnigan must have been providing covering fire, because he remained a bit farther away from the opening. Crusher’s indictor maneuvered just on top of Eric’s own, and he saw two Cicada hands appear just above, wedging into the crack formed by his arm and the edge of the panel. Those hands shoved downward, forcing the panel wider, and Eric was able to pull his arm free.

One of the spheres fired an energy net at that arm, and he rolled away before it struck.

Brontosaurus’ twin heavy lasers rammed through the larger opening in the floor a moment later, and those weapons fired in the rapid succession of Bullet Time so that when next Eric regarded the compartment behind him, all of the spheres were reduced to smoking wreckages.

Crusher forced open the panel all the way, and Brontosaurus pulled himself inside, followed by Dunnigan. The latter grabbed onto the edges of the panel; Brontosaurus dropped one of his weapon mounts to the floor, then reached through the opening and hauled Crusher inside.

“Could have made it myself,” Crusher said.

“Come on, you know you liked getting a boost from me,” Brontosaurus said. His avatar winked as he reattached his mount. For a moment Eric thought the actual Cicada winked as well, but it was an illusion: unlike the earlier models, their skin wasn’t covered in bendable LCDs.

Dunnigan released the panel, but it wouldn’t close. He slid his arms outside, and began firing at the spheres that were no doubt encroaching on their position.

Crusher turned toward Eric, and she began firing her laser rifle at the net that held him. Every impact melted away one of the strands.

“I thought these nets emitted some sort of EM field that prevented lasers from firing,” Eric commented.

“Evidently it only works at extreme short range,” Crusher said. “As in, when it’s plugging up a weapon’s muzzle.”

Brontosaurus joined her, and between the two of them they severed enough of the strands to free him. He still had some of the material smeared across his hull, but as long as it didn’t restrain him, he didn’t care.

Crusher stood back. “So. We’re in.”

“We are.” Eric eyed the iris door on the far side of the compartment. “Our friends are waiting.”

3

Eric approached the iris door. It didn’t open.

“Can’t hold them for much longer,” Dunnigan said.

He glanced at Dunnigan, but Crusher joined him; she rammed her own arms through the panel, and added her fire to Dunnigan’s.

“Say the magic words,” Brontosaurus said, coming to Eric’s side.

Eric held his plasma and laser weapons to the iris door. “Open Sesame.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Chocolate Brownies,” Brontosaurus said. “But hey, we’re from different eras, so of course we’re going to have different answers.”

“Chocolate Brownies?” Eric said. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

The two of them fired their weapons point blank at the door. In seconds they’d poked enough holes that Eric thought they could bash their way through, if they wanted.

“That’s good,” Eric said. He peered through the one of the holes, using the POV of his right arm scope, and surveyed the passageway outside. “Seems clear out there.”

He switched to the viewpoint of his eye cameras, and glanced at Brontosaurus.

“Lead the way,” Eric said.

Brontosaurus hurtled his Cicada into the doorway. It crumpled before him.

A klaxon sounded, and a menacing-looking dual turret descended from the ceiling, emerging from a very faint rectangular outline Eric had paid no attention to earlier.

Brontosaurus ducked back inside as twin energy bolts erupted from that turret. They smashed into the far wall, digging blast holes.

“Lead the way, huh?” Brontosaurus said from where he was crouched behind the edge of the doorway.

Crusher and Dunnigan were continuing to fire from the opening and onto the hull outside, no doubt at the armed spheres that continue to approach. They were angled just to the side of the doorway, and out of view from the turret.

Brontosaurus leaned past and unleashed several blasts from his heavy lasers, but ducked back inside once again; two more energy bolts tore into the side of the doorway and smashed into the wall on the far side beyond.

“Damn it, the turret is energy-shielded,” Brontosaurus said. “Bastards have good defenses. I was hoping for something meager, you know, airship-level defenses, not starship level.”

“I was hoping the same,” Eric said from where he sheltered on the opposite side of the doorway. “But then again, we’ve never boarded any Banthar airships. Only starships. Maybe this is the norm for all their bigger ships.”

“Maybe it is,” Brontosaurus said. “If so, sucks to be us.”

“More than you know,” Eric said. “Why does that remind me of a song... I’m a bastard...”

“Huh?” Brontosaurus said.

“Sorry, a lyric popped into my head when you said that,” Eric told him. “You’d think after twenty years in the modern era, I’d forget all my twenty-first century culturalizations. Nope. I got a machine mind. Can’t forget anything.”

Brontosaurus leaned past and let off several shots before ducking again. “Yeah, I hear you. And I don’t think our Cicada weaponry is going to be breaching those shields any time soon.”

Eric aimed his scope past the entrance and froze time to study the target. “Maybe we won’t have to.”

“What do you mean?” Brontosaurus asked. He’d synced to Eric’s timebase, courtesy of the packet header in the last transmission.

“I’m looking at the ceiling next to the turret,” Eric said. “The distance and angle are about right…”

“For what?” Brontosaurus said. “Speak, brother!”

Eric let out a strained chuckle. “Sorry. If we concentrate our fire there, at the ceiling along the rim of the energy shield, eventually we’ll strike the innards of that weapon, shutting it down.”

“It may or may not work,” Brontosaurus said. “But we don’t have any other options, do we?”

“I’m assuming the energy shield flashed into existence when your lasers hit?” Eric asked.

“It did, yes,” Brontosaurus replied.

“Send me your recordings when you fired at the turret,” Eric said. “I need to see its outskirts, so I know where to target the ceiling.”

“I’ll go a step beyond that and outline it directly on your HUD,” Brontosaurus said.

Eric received the marker request, and accepted. A red half-sphere appeared around the turret, delimiting the extents of the energy shield.

Eric sped up time to something more manageable, but still far below normal. He aimed the scope of his plasma weapon at the base of the ceiling at the rim of the half-sphere marker, and fired several quick shots.

The turret tips glowed a bright white, and he pulled his weapon back behind cover as the turret returned fire.

He and Brontosaurus continued leaning in and out of cover, firing into the ceiling each time, draining their power cells, until finally they ate through enough of the ceiling to begin striking the base of the turret. It only took a few more shots to bring down the turret, which sparked with electricity before the dual muzzles drooped down and ceased firing.

Eric glanced at his power levels. He was down to thirty five percent. And without sunlight, it wouldn’t be increasing. He had to conserve as much power as possible right now. That meant less Bullet Time sessions, and firing only when necessary.

“Dunnigan, Crusher, let’s go!” Eric said. He leaped into the passageway outside.

Dunnigan and Crusher fired a few more shots and then pulled their arms inside. They hurried from the compartment and followed Eric and Brontosaurus. Dunnigan kept his weapons pointed toward the rear, and let off a shot as one of the spheres entered from the hull opening.

Eric hurried forward. There were iris doors at interval along the left and right sides of the passageway. They all remained closed.

For now.

He reached a bend, and held his left arm past to survey the area with his weapon. The passage beyond was clear.

Eric hurried past with Brontosaurus.

“So where are we going?” Brontosaurus said.

Eric glanced at his overhead map, which was sheathed in the black fog of war that came with unmapped areas. A small tunnel penetrated the darkness of that map—the path the Cicadas had taken through the airship interior so far.

“Set the transmission range of your comm node to max.” Eric did that as he spoke, but the positions of the other Bolt Eaters didn’t show up.

“Got nothing,” Brontosaurus said.

“Same,” Crusher said. “The walls are interfering with our signals.”

“They’ll show up eventually…” Brontosaurus said. “When we’re close.”

“Assuming we can get close.” Dunnigan fired off another shot behind him.

From around the bend ahead more of those small, armed spheres appeared in their path. The gyroscoped muzzles targeted Eric.

He switched to Bullet Time and flattened himself against the wall as the spheres released nets.

“Must be part of the airship’s anti-boarding defenses.” Brontosaurus fired several shots from his heavy lasers.

Eric unleashed his own laser twice, taking down two, while Crusher and Dunnigan got the rest of them.

He reverted to normal time. His power was down to twenty percent.

“How are we doing on power levels?” Eric asked.

“Down to thirty percent here,” Brontosaurus said.

“Fifteen,” Crusher said.

“Eighteen,” Dunnigan said.

“I’m at twenty,” Eric said. “Conserve power. Fire only when necessary.”

“Yeah, we get that,” Dunnigan said. “You’re not the Sarge.”

“But he might as well be,” Brontosaurus answered.

“That’s right, you Yanks like to stick together, don’t ya?” Dunnigan said.

“You’re a Yank, too, need I remind you,” Brontosaurus said.

“Only because these bloody alien sods destroyed my country,” Dunnigan said.

They hurried forward. Eric spotted what looked like an iris-shaped scuttle in the deck; he noticed it because of the way the metal swirls stood out from the surrounding areas of the floor. There was another swirl directly above.

Eric adjusted the map to get an idea of his position relative to their entry point.

“Okay, we’re about two hundred meters inside the ship relative to where we entered,” Eric said. “Given the dimensions of the ship as recorded from outside, and the location where the mechs were tractored in, I’d say we have a better chance of finding the team if we head down.”

“I agree,” Crusher said.

They aimed their weapons at the scuttle, and opened fire, filling it with holes. When they had created a satisfactory amount, Eric knelt, and shoved his arm into one of the bigger holes. The deck was only about the thickness of his forearm, so he was able to reach past, bending his elbow so that his laser weapon had a view of the floor below. He switched to the viewpoint of its scope, keeping his main vision active in the upper right of his HUD.

Dunnigan did the same behind him, sliding his arm into a big hole blown through the scuttle, and pointing his weapon in the opposite direction. While Brontosaurus and Crusher watched their backs, Eric and Dunnigan surveyed their respective sides of the corridor.

Eric rotated his muzzle, scanning from left to right. “Keep an eye on the ceiling. Watch for the signs of hidden defense turrets. It would appear as a very faint rectangular outline.”

“Don’t see any,” Dunnigan said.

“Neither do I,” Eric said. He surveyed the bulkheads on either side, the floor, and then the ceiling one last time. “Seems clear on my end.”

“And mine,” Dunnigan said.

“Great.” Brontosaurus leaped onto the scuttle and broke through it with his weight. Eric still had his arm inside a large hole in that scuttle, and he felt the pull as the encircling metal shifted and yanked down hard, but then the pressure ceded as it abruptly broke away.

Brontosaurus hit the deck and Crusher landed behind him a moment later, facing in the other direction.

“Yup, it’s clear,” Crusher said.

Eric clambered to his feet and leaped down with Dunnigan. He took the lead, heading toward where he thought the mechs were imprisoned. The passageways were big here—big enough to fit mechs in single file, or four Cicadas abreast.

“At least there are no breach seals,” Crusher commented.

“The hell’s a breach seal?” Dunnigan said.

“Haven’t you ever served on a navy boat?” Crusher said. “Breach seals lined the passageways, and they close when the ship operates under Condition Zebra, which is the state of greatest subdivision and tightness, meaning that if there is a breach somewhere, it won’t effect the atmospheric integrity of the rest of the ship.”

“Why would an airship need something like that, unless it operated at high altitudes?” Brontosaurus said.

“Bingo,” Crusher said. “My point exactly.”

“That sealed hatch back there might count as a breach seal,” Dunnigan said.

“The scuttle?” Crusher said. “Not really. It’s there more so that the crew members don’t fall through the deck when running errands nearby.”

As Eric advanced, a large section of his map abruptly filled out, revealing a compartment and the corridor leading to it. Located approximately fifty meters ahead, the green dots of the remaining Bolt Eaters flashed inside the compartment in question.

“Sarge!” Eric said. “Do you read?”

“Scorp,” Marlborough transmitted. “Can’t… lucky… waiting.”

“You’re distorting,” Eric said. “We’re on our way.”

Eric approached at a run.

From around the bend ahead, several… entities stepped forward, and blocked their path. They were made of crystals, and appeared vaguely humanoid.

Eric and the others opened fire, but their weapons were completely useless against the crystalline forms.

“Didn’t we encounter these things on Earth?” Crusher said. “You know, the milk robots? When they touched our Savages, the crystals spread over their bodies, and essentially converted them into more crystal servants? The same happened when they touched human beings.”

“Probably the very same entities,” Eric said.

“Guess we don’t want to be touching them,” Brontosaurus commented as the milk robots approached.

“Makes you wonder why they haven’t used them against the other Bolt Eaters, yet,” Dunnigan said.

“Manticore told us he was bringing us to the Essential,” Brontosaurus said, backing away. “Whatever that is. Maybe letting these entities control us was off limits.”

“Where are some energy weapons when you need them?” Eric said, also retreating. The alien energy weapons were the only way to affect those entities, if only temporarily—the weapons would blacken their outer surfaces, causing the crystalline humanoids to freeze in place, at least until they broke free.

“We have to go around!” Eric said. He turned back, and retreated.

Armed spheres fell from the gaping hole in the scuttle the team had left behind, and the Cicadas shot down the tangos and proceeded onward.

Eric reached a crossroad-style bend; he shoved his weapon past the right side, while Brontosaurus took the left, and they confirmed it was clear. Eric took the right branch, and then another right. He used the map to gauge his position along the way, and to ensure he was heading toward the compartment holding the Bolt Eaters.

They encountered another defense turret that dropped from the overhead, and once more were forced to take cover behind a bend; they fired into the ceiling that surrounded the energy field employed by the turret, and took it down.

Eric was down to seven percent power by then.

They proceeded forward, and rounded the bend that led to the compartment they were looking for.

It, too, was blocked off by crystalline entities several meters in front of them.

“Fuck it,” Eric said. “Target the bulkhead.”

He aimed at the bulkhead beside him and opened fire. The others joined in.

When there was enough damage, Brontosaurus hurled himself at the weakened bulkhead.

Wanting to get away from the incoming milk robots, Eric joined him; he aimed high, while Brontosaurus went low.

Crusher and Dunnigan shoved past, going high and low in the opposite direction.

According to the overhead map, the mechs were here, in this cavernous compartment.

Eric glanced at the different locations as portrayed by that map, and in place of mechs, found only vaguely humanoid crystalline shapes, towering above them.

“I guess letting milk robots take them wasn’t off limits after all,” Dunnigan commented.

4

Eric stared at the crystallized mechs, unsure of what to do. He wondered if the former Bolt Eaters would attack them.

He noticed then, incongruously, that the alien spears protruded naked from the forearms of those mechs that had deployed the Wolverine-style weapons. Only the bases of the blades were enveloped, as if the crystals were afraid to touch the remainder. Or couldn’t, for some reason.

“You made it,” Marlborough transmitted over the comm.

“Sarge!” Eric said. He ran toward Marlborough’s indicator on his map, and found the sergeant encased in translucent crystal. He was hesitant to get too close, worried that the sergeant might try to touch him, and encase him in the material, too.

“It’s me,” Marlborough said. “These crystals are constraining us, no more. I’m not sure if they’re operating in some different mode, or whether the milk robots actually intended to convert us entirely when they touched us one by one before you arrived. Frogger thinks the EM emitters are what saved us. You know, the countermeasures we all have installed to repel micro machines.”

“That’s right,” Frogger transmitted. “The emitters are obviously having a repel effect on these crystals, too, preventing them from penetrating our hulls, restricting them to the outer layers. We could probably break free of them, if we weren’t still bound by nets from the Dragonworms.”

“But Manticore said the ‘Essential’ wanted us,” Eric told his mind clone. “Wouldn’t that rule out any conversion process?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Frogger said. “Depends on what this so-called Essential actually is. If it’s some kind of crystal organism, like these things, then maybe it would still be able to access our neural processes, even after our minds became infected.”

“Where is Manticore by the way?” Brontosaurs asked.

“Stayed behind on the forest floor with the other support units,” Dickson said. “One of the remaining airships probably picked up both him and the alien tanks.”

“So... if the emitters are protecting you, we should be able to break away the crystals for you, since we have similar EM countermeasures installed in our Cicadas, right?” Crusher asked.

“No,” Frogger replied. “I think if you touch the crystals, they’ll just reproduce until they cover your whole body. You’ll be trapped like us. If you really want to break them off, I suggest you grab some of the alien spears.”

“That’ll be hard without collection gloves...” Eric said. They needed special gloves to handle the alien spears, otherwise severe voltages would travel through the devices and into their robot bodies, disabling them.

“Can any of you launch your spears?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Negative,” Marlborough replied. “The bases are encased, and the spears won’t fire.”

“We’ll just make our own gloves,” Crusher said, her avatar shrugging. “The gloves are just insulators, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Eric said. He surveyed the compartment, searching for something that might serve as an insulator. “But there’s nothing here you can use. At least nothing obvious...”

She walked up to one of the encased mechs—Bambi’s, judging from the shape—and touched the crystal with her hands.

“Wait!” Eric said, taking a step toward her.

Crusher removed her hands, but it was too late: the translucent material had already begun to form over her palms and fingers.

“What are you doing?” Eric shouted over the comm.

Crusher’s avatar shrugged on his HUD. “You’ll get me out again.” She had switched to Bullet Time before sending that, and Eric’s timebase had synced automatically, thanks to her transmission.

Crusher leaped toward Bambi’s pronged tail, which hung down from the mech, and latched onto one of the three spears that protruded from the crystal. The coating on her hands protected her from the spear’s effects.

“Bambi, fire the spear, please,” Crusher said. “Hopefully, with my added weight, it will be enough to break free.”

A moment later the spear indeed tore away, and Crusher dropped, still holding it. She landed and tossed the spear into the air for a moment. She grabbed it again, this time by the haft, so that the pointed end faced Bambi.

As the crystal spread down Crusher’s arms, she got to work.

She moved underneath Bambi’s carapace area, stabbing the spear upward in rapid succession and forming deep cracks in the surface. Chunks began to fall away entirely. Electrical bolts spread outward from the impact sites, and soon sparks were playing all across the surface.

“How are you doing in there?” Crusher asked. The crystal had spread to the torso of her Cicada by then, and the portion on her arms had thickened, slowing down her servomotors there. “Is the electricity harming you?”

“No,” Bambi said. “It seems limited to the crystals...”

“Good. The trick is not to drive the blade so far that it contacts your hull underneath…” Crusher stabbed the spear into the joint of one of Bambi’s eight legs, and broke away a huge section of crystal, while causing a fresh wave of sparks to cascade across the translucent material covering the remainder of her body. As far as Eric could tell, none of those sparks touched Bambi’s main hull.

“Try to break free,” Crusher ordered.

“I’m still tied up by the Dragonworm silk, remember?” Bambi said.

“I don’t think you’ll need to move very much... wiggle a bit…” Crusher stabbed another leg, sending up a fresh round of electrical sparks.

“The milk robots are here,” Dunnigan said. “You might want to hurry up a wee bit. With an emphasis on the wee.”

Eric turned around, and saw five of the crystalline robots entering.

“Do all Englishmen talk as funny as you, bro?” Slate said.

“No, I’m a unique bumblebee, mate,” Dunnigan said.

“Bumblebees are extinct,” Traps commented.

“Exactly,” Dunnigan quipped.

Crusher continued stabbing and sending out fresh rounds of electrical bolts, and crystal was breaking away all over Bambi’s body. Bambi shifted her Crab unit, bending forward as far as she was able, given the Dragonworm bindings on her body, and finally all of the crystals fell away, hitting the ground and shattering.

Crusher stepped back and gestured toward Bambi. “She’s all yours.” By then the crystals had spread across the entire surface of Crusher’s body, and she was rapidly slowing down. Eric hoped the EM emitters in the Cicadas were strong enough to prevent the crystals from invading her body and AI core.

Eric glanced at the five robots. Brontosaurus and Dunnigan were firing at the crystalline entities, but their shots did no damage. Nonetheless, they continued shooting as they backed away.

Crusher stepped toward the robots, struggling against the crystals that contained her, but at last her servomotors gave out.

“Damn, fighting these crystals has drained almost all my power,” Crusher said. “I’ve switched to reserves. Sorry, boys, can’t move anymore. Wish I could help. Good luck.”

Not wanting to waste his power cell, Eric switched his time sense closer to normal, and hurried to Bambi. “Dunnigan, join me.”

Eric amped up his time sense again, aware of the battery drain, and aimed his weapon at the webbing that wrapped Bambi’s body. He fired at the individual threads, concentrating on those segments that ensnared her joints.

Dunnigan raced to his side, and together they snipped away threads one by one. It wasn’t fast enough for Eric’s liking. Behind him, the milk robots were continuing to force Brontosaurus backward.

“Brontosaurus, we need your help!” Eric said.

Brontosaurus arrived a moment later, and joined in with his heavy lasers, and their progress improved.

“Try to break free,” Eric told Bambi.

She shifted, straining her Crab against the binds, her servomotors whirring loudly. She froze again. “No good.”

Between shots, Eric kept an eye on the milk robots via his rear view camera. He watched as they closed with the Cicadas, until they were only a meter away.

“Bambi...”

She strained again, but once again could not break free. “It’s no use.”

Eric grabbed onto Bambi’s leg. “Help me!”

Brontosaurus and Dunnigan joined in, and the three of them hauled her to the far side of the room. Eric glanced at his power levels. The exertion had brought him down to five percent, but it had brought the trio time to work on Bambi.

The three of them fired several times, snipping away the threads, and this time when Bambi shifted, she began to break free. In moments she had pulled all of her limbs from the Dragonworm webbing.

Bambi let out a war cry and rushed the five robots, promptly stabbing them in turn with the spears on her barbed tail. Electrical sparks passed up and down the surfaces of the stricken robots, and they shook in place for several moments until finally breaking apart.

Bambi returned to Crusher, who remained frozen in place by the translucent substance. The spear protruded from her hand: only the base was covered in crystals.

Bambi gently stabbed her prongs into Crusher’s chest, which wasn’t encased in crystals as thick as those imprisoning the mechs. Electricity sparked across the surface of the crystal.

“How you feeling, Babe?” Bambi asked her.

Crusher didn’t answer.

“Hm,” Bambi said.

“Did you penetrate her armor with the spears?” Eric asked.

“Not a chance,” Bambi replied. “What do you think I am, an imbecile?” She pronounced the i’s as e’s, emphasizing her French accent.

“Maybe the electrical sparks are entering her body?” Eric suggested.

“No,” Bambi said. “The crystals act as a conductor, drawing the voltage away from the hull. I know, because you experimented on me only moments before, remember?”

“Okay okay, just get her out,” Eric said.

Bambi abruptly slid her tail downward, raking the alien blades through the chest area, and leaving behind two gashes in the translucent material.

A clump of crystal fell away from the chest, revealing the metal polycarbonate composite underneath.

“See?” Bambi said. “Not even a dent.”

Eric couldn’t disagree there.

Bambi stabbed her tail prongs repeatedly into the arms, legs, and head areas, and the sparks continued to pass up and down the crystals. Finally the whole mass crumbled away; the spear fell out of Crusher’s hand at the same time—she was gripping the alien blade with the crystals after all, and not touching it with her own fingers. Dropping that spear was a good thing, because if she touched it without collection gloves, the alien blade would have damaged her.

“Crusher, are you all right?” Eric said.

She didn’t reply.

He touched her shoulders. “Crusher!”

Still no answer. He noticed that the blue dots that were normally active in the eye region of her Cicada were currently dim. Had the EM emitters been too weak to protect her AI core from invasion by the crystals after all?

Was she forever lost to him?

5

Eric was about to shake her, but then, to his relief, her head tilted back.

“Oh, hey,” Crusher said. “I momentarily shut down to conserve power. I’m still running on reserves. It would be really good if you could free my mech soon.”

“We’ll get there,” Eric said. “Hang tight, and conserve power until then.”

She nodded, and her eyes went dim once more.

A panel opened in one of Bambi’s legs. “Would you be a dear?”

Eric grabbed the collection gloves from Bambi’s storage compartment and promptly retrieved the alien spear from the deck. The blade had melted away some of the nearby metal on impact, sending out sparks that had faded away.

Bambi lowered her barbed tail, and Eric slotted the spear into the vacant hole, restoring her to her tri-pronged state. With the alien barbs in that tail, she picked at the Dragonworm threads encasing her weapons, and tore them all free in short order.

Then she made a beeline to the sergeant.

“What about Crusher’s mech?” Eric said.

“She doesn’t need it right away,” Bambi said. “Look at her, she already turned herself offline.”

“That’s because I told her to,” Eric insisted.

Bambi’s avatar shrugged.

She stabbed her tail repeatedly into the sergeant, working on freeing his mech from its crystalline casing.

When she was half done, another group of milk robots appeared at the entrance to the compartment. Eric, Brontosaurus, and Dunnigan did their best to distract them.

When Bambi broke Marlborough free of the crystals, she took out those milk robots, racing across the deck and stabbing the four of them in rapid succession: their crystalline clumps dropped to the deck, joining the pile of jagged blocks that formed the remnants of the previous robots.

She returned to Marlborough, using the prongs in her tail to slash through the Dragonworm binds, freeing his limbs, and weapons.

“Well that feels a whole lot better.” Marlborough rubbed his arms for a moment, as if they were stiff—which was impossible of course. Then he squeezed his right fist, deploying his Wolverine blades, and then began carving the crystals away from Slate beside him.

Meanwhile, Bambi went to work on Traps.

They were able to free themselves exponentially from that point, and only had to pause one more time to defend against milk robots. Ten had appeared this time, armed with weapons that were capable of firing crystals. Slate was struck, and recrystallized, but the other mechs jettisoned their spears in rapid succession, dropping the milk robots.

After retrieving those spears in their Cicadas, via the collection gloves obtained from their storage compartments, they freed Slate again, and the remaining mechs.

When Crusher’s mech was free, Eric shook her by the shoulders and she reactivated. She folded inside the Devastator and when the cockpit closed behind her, she let out a long sigh.

“Well, that’s better,” Crusher said.

Eric returned to his own mech, as did the other Cicadas, and was glad to see his power level jump back up. It went down as he watched, as some of the power was diverted to recharge the Cicada’s battery. He limited that recharge to fifty percent for the moment, with instructions to continue the charge when he returned to the sunlight.

Slate and Brontosaurus stood next to the entrance, guarding. They had their laser arms bent around the doorframe.

Marlborough approached them.

“Still clear out there,” Slate said.

“Good,” Marlborough said. “We’re going to retreat along the same route we took to get here. We won’t fit the corridors of Scorpion’s path, not in our mechs.”

“If we go that way, we’ll have to destroy the tractor beam generator at the top of the hangar bay,” Traps said.

Marlborough glanced at his dual spears. “That’s what we have these for.”

“You know, while this airship might have inertialess drives that protect it from black hole attacks on the outside, I bet it can’t disperse a gravity well that forms on the inside,” Tread said.

Marlborough glanced at Tread, gazing upon the dual cannons carried on the back of his Rhino. Sarge’s avatar momentarily appeared on Eric’s HUD, and he wore a thoughtful expression.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Slate said. “If it’s anything like the mothership we boarded twenty years ago, then it won’t work worth shit, at least until we take down the main power source…”

“That’s exactly my point,” Tread said. “This is an airship, not a mothership. They’re not really alike, at least in terms of power generation abilities. So it will work. Anywhere aboard.”

“It’s certainly worth a try,” Marlborough said. “But if does work, we’ll need some headroom to escape. Hold your fire until my order.”

“You got it,” Tread said.

Slate led the way into the corridor, while the others followed in single file. Tread brought up the rear, since he would be firing the black hole.

More milk robots and armed spheres appeared up ahead, but Slate made short work of them in his Devastator mech, firing his energy, plasma and laser weapons at the same time against any spheres, and slicing the milk robots with his Wolverine blades. They all seemed so small now that Eric was operating inside his mech once more.

The Bolt Eaters approached a bend ahead, and Slate held the weapon on his arm around the edge.

“Clear,” Slate announced.

“Go!” Marlborough ordered.

Slate stepped past.

Traps came next, followed by Eric.

A defense turret dropped from the ceiling in front of the group. Slate folded his ballistic shield into place and rushed the turret. Eric could see the red heat smears appearing on the inside as the shield took several shots.

Slate reached the turret and stabbed his alien blades through the energy shield and into the weapon, disabling it.

Having a mech again certainly changed the tactics that were in play.

Eric moved forward so that the rest of the units could follow around the bend. When Tread, on drag, rounded it, Marlborough turned toward him.

“All right, Tread, it’s time,” Marlborough said. “Fire the black hole. Target the far side of the corridor, around the bend. The rest of you, hustle!”

Tread turned around and aimed his two cannons down the corridor the Bolt Eaters had taken previously.

Meanwhile, Eric and the others increased their pace.

A tentacled tank appeared ahead, barely fitting the confines of the corridor.

Eric felt the pull then, attempting to drag him diagonally through the bulkhead beside him; all air in the corridor was sucked past, whipped into a gale.

“Looks like it works after all!” Tread announced.

Slate still had his shield in place, and he fired over the rim at the tank, with his energy weapon. A tentacle slammed into his shield, and unleashed its energy weapon point blank. The entire inside of the shield turned white hot.

Slate sliced his alien blades past the shield, and into the metal tentacle, breaking it off. He made his way forward, and kicked aside the tentacle, which was glued to the bulkhead from the gravity.

Eric leaned a hand against the bulkhead for balance, and fired his energy weapon past Traps, and Slate’s shield. He struck the tank—it hadn’t raised its energy shield. Eric suspected the close confines of the passageway had something to do with that.

More tentacles pounded Slate and his shield broke away as the tank’s weapons obviously opened fire.

“Someone take point!” Slate dropped to the deck.

Eric fired his two blades, doing his best to adjust his aim to compensate for the gravity. One blade hit a tentacle, the other traveled past the metal appendages and struck the tank’s main body. Electrical sparks ran up and down the surface, and then the tentacles collapsed, falling into the bulkhead: where the gravity drew them.

The wind subsided—obviously the interior was pressurized, and the internal atmosphere had been exhausted, at least from this section. Eric could still feel the inexorable pull from the black hole. It was like the bulkhead beside him had become the new deck; it felt strong enough to support his weight, and he thought he could walk on it.

Sure enough, Slate had already repositioned himself so that he was standing on the bulkhead; Eric did the same, as did the other Bolt Eaters. That new deck wouldn’t hold up for long, he knew, as the compartments in between his current position and the black hole were devoured. In fact, he was surprised it was lasting as long as it was.

“Did you create a miniature black hole, or a wormhole?” Eric asked, by way of confirmation.

“Black hole,” Tread said.

“Oh.”

The alien ship was obviously made of very strong materials.

Eric moved forward. He paused beside the tentacle that held one of his spears, and ejected in his Cicada, retrieving his collection gloves from the storage panel, and then slotting the blade back into his forearm. He advanced in his Cicada—he had to amp up his servomotors to the max to counter the gravity—until he reached the tank ahead of Slate. He grabbed the spear, returned to his Devastator, and inserted it, then he swung back into the cockpit.

Slate shoved the damaged tank forward, since there was no way to squeeze past it. Traps pressed against Slate’s Devastator with his Rambler, adding whatever robotic muscle he could.

“We’re moving too slowly, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough said. “Pick up the pace!”

But the deck collapsed underneath them and they fell into the empty space. Below, Eric could see the tear in spacetime waiting to devour them.

“Tread!” Marlborough said.

Tread fired several rapid dispersion bolts at the rip in reality, and it winked out. Eric’s motion shifted, and he was dragged to the right—the direction of the original gravity vector. He and the rest of the team landed on the real deck below. Or rather, the compartments located a few decks underneath it: all that remained of the original deck was a crater.

“You know, based on the map we’ve created so far, and the images we took of the exterior,” Crusher said. “It looks like we’re close enough to the hull here to blast our way out.”

Eric glanced at the map. They were on the same level as the hangar bay they were originally headed for.

“Slate, Mickey, cover the approaches!” Marlborough said. “The rest of you, concentrate fire on the deck!”

The team members unleashed everything they had at the deck below: energy cannons, plasma bolts, laser beams. The surface became riddled with holes. They concentrated fire on a few of those gaps, enlarging them until light began to pour in—they’d broken through to the exterior.

Eric could see barren, rolling gray plains below. There was no sign of the blue trees of the forest they had left behind. He used his laser finder to momentarily estimate the distance: the ground was about five hundred meters below.

The team kept firing until they had enlarged those holes into a single big one capable of fitting all their mechs, including Bambi’s Crab.

“Leap, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough said. He dispatched a randomized jump sequence. Eric viewed it on his HUD: he was third. “Tread, you go last. Fire your black hole as a parting gift before you leave!”

“I’d love to!” Tread said.

Hicks went first. Then Mickey. Followed by Eric.

“This is going to hurt!” Mickey said.

Eric surveyed the sky around the airship. He spotted the other four vessels that were providing escort on the points of the compass. The Dragonworms were nowhere in sight—either they’d been left behind, or had loaded into one of the craft, most likely because they couldn’t fly as fast as these airships could.

Below him, Hicks hit the ground. Mickey landed twenty meters in front of him, a testament to how fast the airship was moving. Eric in turn hit the ground twenty meters in front of Mickey.

His Damage Report indicator lit up, and he enlarged it to discover he’d weakened his left and right ankle, knee, and hip servomotors in the fall. They were still functional, but had reduced maneuverability, and their power outputs were limited to one tenth of their previous maximums. He also had several dents and scrapes on his external armor.

Above him, all five airships abruptly halted, making good use of those inertialess drives of theirs.

The next mechs that leaped from the hull breach in the central airship had to roll out of the way when they hit the ground, so that the subsequent mechs wouldn’t land on top of them.

Finally they were all out, and when Tread dropped, he unleashed a bright flash from his black hole weapon; it passed into the ship, and Eric knew the black hole had formed when Tread’s descent slowed slightly.

The structural integrity of the airship was already weakened from the previous black hole so that as Eric watched, the ship began to implode. In about ten seconds it had completely collapsed, and was engulfed by the black hole inside of it.

The other four airships were unaffected by the external pull, and hovered toward the Bolt Eaters on the barren ground.

Tread had landed, and he had his cannon aimed at the black hole above. “Sarge?” he asked.

“Get rid of it!” Marlborough ordered.

Tread fired a couple of dispersion bolts, and when they hit, the rip in spacetime winked out.

Dragonworms emerged from one of the airships. Tentacled tanks dropped to the ground from another.

“The fight has only just begun, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough said. “Open fire!”

6

Eric folded his ballistic shield into place and dashed forward to join the others. He opened fire, targeting the Dragonworms, since they didn’t have energy shields and were the easiest to take down. He released a triple punch against each one: a plasma bolt, an energy bolt, and a laser attack. Sometimes the bioweapons dodged the first two, but they could never dodge the final, which was instantaneous. He could usually terminate them with one hit if he aimed the laser directly between the mandibles.

He glanced at his power levels on his HUD; they had gone down, of course, but the levels actually ticked up a bar while he was looking at it. That was a nice feeling, knowing that the sun would recharge his internal battery as he fought.

He returned his attention to the bioweapons, but was forced to dive behind his ballistic shield as the nearby enemy tanks shot energy beams from their tentacles.

“Two teams, T1, T2,” Marlborough said. “Sending battle formations now!”

Eric was assigned to T1, whose members formed a line of shields to protect T2 from the tank attacks. Meanwhile, T2 concentrated their fire on the Dragonworms. The bioweapons occasionally launched their webs, in addition to plasma and laser beams, and the members of T2 used their bladed attacks to slice through the nets.

“The airships are bombarding us with gamma ray beams,” Dee, his Accomp, announced. “So far, radiation armor is holding.”

Tread fired his black hole weapon again, sending a bolt into the middle of the Dragonworm cluster, and another toward the alien tanks. The black holes formed: the bioweapons couldn’t escape the pull, no matter how frantically they waved their dragonfly wings. Those closest were almost instantly spaghettified and engulfed, while the farther struggled to slow the rate of their demise.

Meanwhile, the alien tanks slammed their tentacles into the terrain and gripped the surface as they were sucked backward. One tank was lost immediately as a crater formed in the land beneath the black hole, while the remainder held their ground.

Eric and the rest of the two teams also had to dig in to counter the pull from the two rips in spacetime. Eric plunged his metal feet, toes first, into the alien soil, and secured himself in that manner so that he could still hold his ballistic shield and laser weapon. The wind whipped past from behind, adding to the pull.

One of the alien tanks was evidently equipped with a black hole weapon, because it fired two dispersion bolts in rapid succession. The miniature gravity wells disappeared, and before the Bolt Eaters could react, that particular tank fired a black hole of its own at them.

The bright bolt was headed directly at Eric, in fact.

“Incoming!” he shouted.

The shield line scattered. Eric threw himself to the ground, and landed only a few meters away from where the black hole formed. He retracted his shield and swiveled his weapon out of the way so that he could slam his fists into the surface for purchase. His legs were immediately flung upward, toward the black hole.

The ground around him broke away in clumps. He was operating in Bullet Time, so he knew he was watching the formation of a crater.

And then the ground under his hands broke away as well, and he was drawn backwards.

Brontosaurus grabbed him by the wrists.

The ground underneath the heavy gunner crumbled, and once more Eric was pulled backward, this time with Brontosaurus.

But then Bambi grabbed Brontosaurus’ ankles. She slammed her six legs into the ground, and struggled to hold on; the surface beneath her was slowly breaking away. Her first pair of forelegs had no footing a moment later, and then her second pair lost the ground underneath.

A dispersion bolt launched from somewhere behind her. Tread’s doing.

The bolt struck the black hole, and the incredible suction subsided. Eric, Brontosaurus, and Bambi all dropped into the resultant crater that had formed.

“Eliminate that tank!” Marlborough shouted.

Eric rolled to the side as one of the surviving Dragonworms swooped down upon him and launched a gooey web. It struck the unearthed soil beside him.

Still lying down, he swiveled his plasma and laser rifles into his hands and fired. Dragonworm insides rained down on him, and he rolled out of the way again as the bioweapon hit the ground, landing in the crater beside him.

Brontosaurus took out another Dragonworm that had endured the initial onslaught, while Bambi got a third.

All three of them crawled to the edge of the crater, using the lip as cover. Eric glanced at his map: there were no formations among the Bolt Eaters anymore: the team members were scattered around the crater, ducked behind their shields and firing at the closest tanks or bioweapons. Mostly it was to offer covering fire for Slate and Traps, who were dashing forward to assault the tanks with their Wolverine-style blades.

As Eric watched, Slate dodged the attack from a tentacle—evidently the tank had lowered its energy shield to strike—and then slammed his alien blades home. Eric spotted a dual cannon on the back of that tank, in the middle of those tentacles, and he realized that was the one harboring the black hole device. Eric quickly scanned the remaining alien tanks and confirmed that none of the others had such weapons.

Eric lined up one of the tentacled tanks with his shoulder-mounted energy cannon, intending to distract it from Traps, but before he could fire, a shadow blotted out the sun.

He glanced up: an airship was directly overhead.

Obviously intending to use its tractor beam.

“Move!” Eric said.

He leaped out of the crater along with Brontosaurus, but Bambi was too slow: she had fired her jumpjets, but the tractor beam activated before she left its area of effect, and she froze. A translucent light formed a cylinder all around that area of effect, and Bambi’s front claws protruded from the edges.

Eric leaped at her, grabbing onto those claws. Brontosaurus meanwhile offered covering fire from the ground. Frogger had joined him.

He curled his biceps, straining his servomotors, and that movement, combined with his weight, ripped Bambi free, and they plunged to the ground.

“Concentrate fire on the airship!” Eric said. Its energy shield would be down.

He unleashed several plasma and energy bolts, as did other members of the team, targeting the open hangar bay above. He also fired his laser beam.

The laser impacts drilled small holes into the tractor beam generator, but before the plasma and energy bolts hit, the tractor beam deactivated, and the energy shield kicked in—convex flashes appeared all along the surface of the field where those bolts were absorbed.

“Let’s get a concerted attack against that airship!” Marlborough said. “Fire one spear each!”

Eric deployed his alien blades and aimed his arm upward.

“Now!” Marlborough said.

Eric launched one of the alien spears.

Similar blades launched from across the platoon, and struck the alien shield at the same time. Ten of them were repelled, but the shield fell at that point, and four more penetrated, striking the underside of the airship and sending out sparks in all directions along the hull. One of those spears entered the still open hangar bay, and struck the tractor beam generator. From the way electricity literally engulfed it, Eric thought it had gone offline.

“Cover me!” Bambi activated her jumpjets and ascended toward that hangar bay.

Eric opened fire at the remaining bioweapons in the air, while other Bolt Eaters joined in. Some of them also fired at the alien tanks.

The airship was attempting to move out of the way, so Bambi missed the hangar bay and landed on the hull. She clambered along the surface like a fast-moving spider, having her foot magnetization adjustments down to an art, and reached the bay shortly; its doors were closing, but she pulled herself inside before they shut.

“Bambi, careful!” Eric said.

“You know you love me when I do brave shit like this,” Bambi said.

“No, actually, I never knew you to be reckless…” Eric said.

“I’m not reckless,” Bambi said. “I know what I’m doing.”

And then her signal cut off.

The hangar bay doors bulged, and two spears thrust forth from inside. Electrical sparks passed outward. More bulges, and finally the material buckled, and Bambi’s tail appeared. The hole enlarged, until her Crab peeked through. On its back was a Cicada wearing collection gloves. She held a spear in hand, and promptly slotted it into the tail, so that she had three prongs once more. Then she waved.

“Tread, launch a black hole in here,” Bambi ordered.

“It’ll take a few secs to get into position,” Tread said.

“Sex,” Bambi commented. “I like that word. In the meantime, I’ll gather up the spears that got through!”

Her Crab clambered onto the hull and began racing to the locations where the different spears protruded. When she reached each one, she leaned to the side in her Cicada, pried the spear free, and then hurled it toward one of the tanks below. Sometimes she’d strike a weakened energy shield, piercing through it and the tank beyond. Other times, her blade would glance off, or the tank would swerve out of the way.

Tread launched a bolt from his black hole weapon.

“Damn it, still have one left.” Bambi rushed to the final spear and pried it free, not bothering to aim it at an alien tank, and simply letting it fall.

The bolt entered the tear in the hangar bay, and a black hole formed.

The airship began to implode.

Bambi released the hull. She fell away just as it collapsed underneath her.

None of the tanks fired any dispersion bolts—confirming that there were indeed none left with black hole weapons.

When the airship vanished from existence, Tread fired a few dispersion bolts and the tear in reality faded.

Bambi hit the ground.

“See, told you I wasn’t reckless,” she said.

And then an energy beam hit her Crab in the head from behind, and melted that part of her crab away.

She collapsed.

“Bambi!” Eric rushed to her, as did Crusher.

Eric released several energy bolts at the tank that had done this; Frogger rushed it with his remaining alien blade, and pierced the shield. Frogger was swatted aside by a tentacle, but then Slate went in and finished the job.

Crusher lifted the mech, revealing where Bambi’s Cicada had been pinned underneath.

“Hey guys,” she said sheepishly, scrambling to her feet. She examined the headless Crab. “Hm, guess my mech is out of action for the next little while.”

Eric nodded, relieved.

“Target the next airship!” Marlborough shouted.

Another airship was coming overhead. None of the bioweapons were left.

Eric held his shield toward the tanks to protect himself from their incoming beams. He wasn’t paying much attention to them—he was focusing on the airship—and he’d just have to hope none of those beams managed to penetrate the holes in his shield.

“I only want ten spears this time,” Marlborough said. “That’s the magic number. Any more than that, and we’ll just lose spears. Tread, you’re going to fire an instant later.”

Eric aimed his spear at the airship and waited for Marlborough to give the order.

“Now!” Marlborough said.

Ten of the Bolt Eaters, including Eric, launched their remaining spears. The blades all bounced away from the force field.

Eric fired his laser to confirm that it was down, and he was able to create a dark spot on the hull.

“Shield is down!” he announced.

But Tread had already fired the black hole bolt, and even though the airship’s hangar bay wasn’t open, with the shield down, the bolt was able to reach the hull. A pinch in reality formed on the surface, and the vessel began to implode.

It only took a short time for the ship to implode, and when it was gone, Tread fired the necessary dispersion bolts.

The other two airships promptly fled away to the north.

“That’s right, run away, bitches!” Slate said. “Can’t handle real men, huh?”

“And women,” Crusher said.

“Women,” Slate said. “That’s funny.”

“Shut it, before I cave in that tin can you call a head,” Crusher said.

The Bolt Eaters eliminated the remaining tentacled tanks in short order—those that still had their spears rushed them, while the others offered covering fire.

And then it was done: there were no more enemies to target.

“Well, that was entertaining,” Slate said. “Nothing like destroying a few airships and their alien pets to brighten up one’s day.”

“Look at the maps!” Traps said. “All messed up! It says we’re at the same point in the forest where the aliens picked us up. Next to the rift!”

“That’s the problem when traveling aboard a craft equipped with inertialess drives,” Eagleeye said. “Our accelerometers don’t work.”

Eric glanced at the overhead map. It was true. The immediate area had been overwritten by data from the surrounding plains, but beyond it, the map showed the forested regions the team had mapped after leaving the rift. He recognized the eastern route they had explored, which traveled out onto the plains before looping back to come in from the north. Everything else was black. Definitely incorrect.

Eric activated his repair swarm and designated one of the tank wreckages as his material source. His damaged leg servomotors were grinding loudly, so he decided to devote most of the drones to repairing his ankle, knee, and hip servomotors first, along with other damage he had taken during the fight.

Mickey sat his mech down on the ground.

“I know I’m a robot, but that was exhausting,” Mickey said. “Mentally, if not physically. Especially considering the news about that map. This whole operation was for nothing. How are we going to get back now? I just want to spend the next few years in VR.”

“No time to think about that,” Marlborough said. “Because you see, there’s no rest for the weary. Gather up your spears. See those mountains to the east, in the distance? The Banthar are going to be looking for us real quick… I want to be hidden inside those mountains before the hour is out.”

7

Eric jettisoned from his Devastator, and retrieved the collection gloves from his storage compartment. With his Cicada unit, he collected two of the spears that littered the ground from the previous attack, and slotted them both into his forearm while the drones continued their repairs.

“Wolverine returns,” Frogger commented. He was carrying two spears back to his own mech.

“That’s getting old,” Eric said.

“I suppose it is,” Frogger told him. “Maybe we need to come up with a new name.”

“Well, those tanks could be Dr. Octopus’s,” Eric said.

“Terrible name,” Slate said. “Considering we’re not up on your bitch-like pop culture.”

“I kind of feel like Spiderman with these blades,” Mickey said. “At least, when I deploy them. It’s almost like launching a web.”

“We’ll stick with Wolverine metaphors for now,” Frogger said.

The remaining members of the team retrieved their spears, some of which protruded from the wreckages of the alien tanks.

Bambi stood before her downed mech. She’d deployed the repair drones from the storage compartment, and they were working on restoring the melted head section. The drones utilized materials from a nearby alien tank, sparing her own. That material couldn’t have been too exotic; otherwise the drones would have had trouble melting it down.

“Who’s going to drag my Crab while it undergoes repairs?” Bambi said.

“Girl, you got crabs?” Slate asked.

“Yeah,” Bambi said. “Got a steel comb?”

“I don’t need no steel comb,” Slate said. “Today’s your lucky day: I’ll comb my dick over your pussy, and that’s the only combing you’ll ever need again.”

“You’re lucky my mech is currently disabled,” Bambi said. “Or you might find yourself castrated.”

“Ooo Bambi, I love it when you talk dirty,” Slate said. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, I got no dick.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Bambi said. “Nor balls, either. Very symbolic of the so-called ‘man’ you are.”

“Hey, don’t be focusing your efforts on insulting me in my machine form,” Slate said. “Because none of us got any genitalia. Even you, in case you forgot to peek between your legs this morning. But hey, you should see me in VR. Then my girl, you’ll realize what an amazing specimen I am.”

“Oh, I have seen you in VR, many times, and I’m not impressed,” Bambi said. “In fact, seeing as that’s where most of your pride seems to originate, perhaps I’ll focus my efforts on hacking your VR. Virtually castrating your avatar will be much more pleasurable than anything I could do to you in the real world. Especially if those changes were permanent.”

“Don’t you dare go touching my custom designed avatar,” Slate said. “I spent hours perfecting my dick, getting it just right.”

“You would,” Eagleeye said.

“That’s right, take her side,” Slate said. “Just like the pussy boy you are.”

“At least I don’t live on a diet of soy,” Eagleeye said.

“Bitch, that the best insult you can come up with?” Slate said. “Considering you know I don’t eat no food?”

“Oh, you eat food,” Eagleeye said. “And the base ingredient in all of it is soy.”

“I don’t get it,” Hicks said. “What’s wrong with soy?”

“And we have the prototypical soy boy in the house,” Slate said, pointing at Hicks.

“Increases estrogen,” Tread said. “Or something.”

Everyone had finished restoring their spears by then, and the Cicadas all loaded into their mech units.

“Back to my question, who’s going to drag my unit?” Bambi asked.

“I’ll do it,” Eric said. He went to the Crab and grabbed the tail, sliding the tip over one shoulder—the shoulder opposite his energy cannon.

“I’ll help,” Crusher said. “Least I can do for my sister.”

“You’re more than sisters, last I heard,” Slate said, his voice oozing sexual insinuation.

“That’s right.” Crusher grabbed one of the Crab’s hind legs and lifted it over her shoulder. Then she held up one hand, formed a V shape, and moved her head toward it, as if licking.

“Ooo!” Slate said. “I knew it!”

Crusher lowered her hand, wrapped it around the leg, and then pulled. Eric did the same, so that they dragged Bambi forward together. His legs creaked in protest, as they still suffered damage from the leap out of the airship: the repairs were ongoing.

“Careful!” Bambi told Crusher. “Don’t pull too hard or you’ll damage the leg. I don’t want to have to repair that, too.”

“I’ll treat it as if it was my own mech,” Crusher said.

Bambi watched them for a moment, and when she was satisfied that Eric and Crusher were handling her mech gently enough, she leaped onto the Crab’s carapace. Rather hard, at that: as if she was allowed to damage it, but no one else.

“What about the tank?” Bambi said. “I’ll need the spare parts. Or the materials, at least.”

“You’ll be able to leech off the tanks we bring with us.” Marlborough turned toward the other mechs. “I want the rest of you to drag one tank behind you, each. Some of the metal is obviously compatible with our drones, considering they’re melting them down well enough for her Crab. Use them for repairs. And Frogger, distribute the blueprints of those emitters you came up with back in the forest. It’s time to hide our signatures from the Banthar.”

“Finally!” Frogger said.

“Yes,” Marlborough said. “Now that we have the materials, we’re not going to waste them.”

“Unless of course the emitters don’t actually work,” Dickson said. “In which case, we’re up the proverbial fecal creek.”

“Leave it to the staff sergeant to come up with an euphemism like up the proverbial fecal creek,” Slate said. “Sheesh. And I thought mine were bad.”

“Should we harvest the black hole cannon from the alien tank?” Crusher said.

Brontosaurus went to the tank in question. “Looks like they got smart, and started installing self destructing weapons.” He ripped the cannon away and revealed what was left of it: a melted husk. He squeezed, shattering it; the particles floated away on the breeze.

“Speaking of black hole cannons,” Tread said. “Mine took some damage back there. One of those damn tanks hit it… looks like I can’t use the cannon anymore.”

“That’s too bad,” Dickson said. “That was our most powerful weapon.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” Tread said. “I’d try to repair it, but I have no idea where to start. This alien tech is all a black box to us.”

“That is indeed unfortunate,” Marlborough said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s move. Pick a tank!”

The mechs began dragging the wreckages of different tentacled tanks, and they headed toward the mountains to the east.

“Dickson, I want two teams,” Marlborough said. “Traveling overwatch formation. We’ll try for a jogging pace. I know some of you have damaged leg servomotors, so we might not keep it up for long.”

Dickson broke them into the requisite teams, T1 and T2. Eric was in T1, as usual. Slate was on point, Tread on drag. Eric kept five meters behind Slate, offset to the left, while the others behind him were offset different distances from the centerline. Fifty meters behind Tread, Dunnigan was on point for T2.

Eric smiled as he remembered Dunnigan’s comment the first time he’d ever been placed on point: “That’s right, the Englishman always gets the sacrificial point position.”

He scanned the horizon with his shoulder-mounted energy cannon as he jogged onward, as did the others. He kept up a constant, gentle pressure on the tail of Bambi’s crab as he dragged the unit, mindful about her earlier comment about not pulling too hard. So far, her mech seemed to be holding up well despite the faster pace. He was ready to let go if that should change.

A couple of drones moved ahead of Slate, taking the lead a hundred meters in front.

“Eagleeye, those your repair drones?” Slate asked.

“Yup,” Eagleeye replied. “I’ve diverted some of them to act as scouts. 3D-printed some cameras with my other drones and attached them to the undersides of these ones. Just as good as actual Ravens, except their comm range is more limited.”

“Nice,” Slate said.

Eric received a share request on his HUD.

Frogger would like to share the blueprints for T.A.M.E.S—The Alien Masking Emitter System with you.

“I already have it,” Eric said. “Fancy name, by the way. Tames.”

“Uh huh,” Frogger said. “Accept it. This is the latest and greatest. Refined with my most up-to-the-minute concepts and ideas.”

“Well then, I guess I have to accept, don’t I?” Eric did so, and the new blueprints appeared on his HUD. He let Dee take over while he scanned a few of them. There was definitely some new stuff there.

He dismissed the blueprints. His damaged leg servomotors were still making unusual sounds, and he noticed for the first time that his drones were just hovering alongside his mech, keeping pace, but otherwise not performing any repairs. He realized that was because he hadn’t designated a new material source since leaving the combat zone: the drones weren’t going to travel all the way back there just to gather repair elements.

Keeping up his jogging pace, Eric targeted the tentacled tank Slate dragged, and designated it as his new repair source. The drones promptly moved back and forth between Eric’s mech and the tank, stripping away ore as they renewed the repair process.

“Hey, the hell you think you’re doing, bitch?” Slate said. “This is my tank. I need it to repair my mech, and build my own emitter.”

“I performed a check,” Brontosaurus said. “We’re carrying enough spare material to repair us all, in addition to creating Frogger’s emitters.”

“All right, fine,” Slate said. “But I’ll be keeping a close eye on resource usage. If you take more than your fair share, I’m shutting your bitch ass down.”

Eric took offense at that particular wordage, especially the ‘bitch’ part, but decided not to say anything, since he was leeching off Slate’s materials, after all. The repair drones working on Bambi’s Crab, meanwhile, were grabbing their elements from the tank Brontosaurus dragged on the other side.

Almost all the other mechs had initiated repairs, and were also using the spare materials of the alien metal they carried behind them. Only Frogger, Hicks and Mickey, who apparently had taken the least damage, had begun working on the emitters. At least, that was Eric’s impression, because the drones were attaching a skeletal frame to the backs of the mechs in question. It looked like the beginnings of some sort of exoskeleton, like the kind a human might wear. He knew because he cycled through the camera feeds of the different team members in one quarter of his HUD as he jogged.

“You three pussies didn’t do much fighting, did ya?” Slate commented. He also must have been switching through the different video feeds. “Seeing as you got no repairs to make. You cowered under your shields, crying for the big muscular Slate to come rescue your sorry asses.”

“Actually, we fought harder than anyone,” Frogger said. “It’s just that we’re at such a higher skill level of combat development than you when it comes to small infantry tactics.”

“Uh huh,” Slate said. “Keep telling yourselves that.”

The team jogged on.

Slate gazed toward the plains to the north, where the craft they’d escaped from had fled. Eric often looked that way as well, worried that reinforcements would be arriving at any time.

“So, two airships got away,” Slate said.

“With our luck, Manticore was in one of those that fled,” Eagleeye commented.

“Well, that’s good,” Slate said. “Because I want to look him in the eye cameras when I stab my alien blades clean through his chest assembly.”

“Kinda pissed at him, are you?” Mickey said.

“Just a little,” Slate said.

“I want to kick him in the nards myself,” Crusher said.

“I want to cut off those nards as you call them…” Bambi said.

“You really like to dismember genitals, don’t you Bambi girl?” Slate said. “What is this, some kind of fetish of yours? Maybe we should be calling you Ball Snipper. Goes right along with Crusher’s full alias.”

“Hey, I got a trademark on the term Ball Crusher,” Crusher said.

“I’m sure you do,” Slate said. “Just as I got a trademark on Biggest Dick Of Them All.”

“Certainly suits you,” Crusher said.

“That didn’t quite come out the way I intended…” Slate said.

“So Sarge, I know you want to head to the mountains, because you hope to find cover there,” Traps interrupted. “But after that, what then? Like Mickey said, with our maps messed up like this, we have no idea how we’re going to get back.”

“When we’ve built the emitters, we’ll head southwest,” Marlborough said. “With luck, we’ll hit the forest. Otherwise, we’ll keep searching until our previous map data lines up with the surrounding terrain, and we spot recognizable landmarks.”

“I just thought of something,” Mickey said. “Now that the Banthar know where the rift site is, what’s to stop them from sending an invasion force through when Arnold creates the next one?”

“Nothing,” Marlborough said. “And in fact, the Banthar are probably going to do just that. Arnold will close it when he realizes what’s happening, of course. That also means he might not be opening the rift going forward.”

“What are you saying, we’re going to be trapped here?” Dunnigan asked.

“I sincerely hope not,” Crusher added.

“Let me clarify… Arnold won’t open the rift unless he has a reason,” Marlborough said. “That means, he’ll be preparing an invasion force of his own. Or at least reinforcements, to search for us.”

“You think he’ll send our clones?” Eric asked.

“I’m not sure,” Marlborough replied. “He’ll have no idea whether we’re still trying to complete the mission and return. For all he knows, we’re still out here. Maybe he’ll even open the rift one more time, at the end of the three-week window he promised us. To give us a final chance to return before he recreates us from clones.”

“Honestly,” Bambi said. “If he does create clones, and sends them through before the three weeks are up, I won’t mind, especially if those clones end up saving us.”

“I will,” Slate said. “Shit. I don’t need a clone of myself running around.”

“I can agree with that!” Eagleeye said. “One Slate is enough!”

“Har,” Slate said. “I don’t want no Eagleeye clones getting in my hair, either.”

“You don’t have hair, bro,” Eagleeye said. “You got a bald pussy.”

“What?” Slate said. “Don’t you be calling my head a pussy!”

“Well it is,” Eagleeye said. “You and Hicks—”

In front of Eric, Slate slammed the tentacle of the tank he was hauling to the ground, and he spun around. Eric, still jogging, nearly ran into him. Eric and Crusher swerved to the side, rounding the tank as they carried Bambi, and continued forward, taking point.

“At ease, Slate,” Marlborough said. “Resume the march.”

“But that little bitch—”

“If I have to tell you to resume the march one more time...” Marlborough’s voice trailed off threateningly.

Slate sighed.

Eric glanced at his rear view camera, past Brontosaurus who was jogging five meters behind him, and spotted Slate. His mech turned around, picked up the tentacle, and began dragging the alien tank once more. He resumed his place in the march behind Brontosaurus.

“You’re going to pay for that comment later,” Slate muttered.

“I’m sure I will,” Eagleeye said.

“Stop taunting him,” Marlborough said. “That’s an order.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” Eagleeye said. “The mission is getting to me.”

“It’s getting to all of us,” Marlborough said. “We’re potentially trapped here on an alien world, surrounded by aliens trying to capture us for spare parts. Doesn’t really get much worse than this. Slate, return to point position. I’m not liking having three mechs exposed in front like that.”

“You got it.” Slate increased his speed, and sped past Eric and Crusher to resume point.

8

Eric continued to scan the horizons on either side as he jogged, but he spotted no incoming forces. He also took care to study the mountain range ahead, which could be a prime ambush spot. He had Dee take over his mech, and zoomed in to study the different rock faces, searching for signs of hidden turrets.

For repairs, his drones continued to melt materials away from Slate’s tank in front, while Bambi and Crusher utilized the processed metals from Brontosaurus’ haul just behind to effect their own repairs.

When the platoon was halfway to the mountains thirty minutes later, Eric and the other members of the Bolt Eaters had to halt so that the drones could open up his servomotors and finish the repairs. After another half hour, the drones had completely fixed his servomotors and sealed them up again; they’d also repaired the remaining damage to his mech, including the holes in his ballistic shield, so he instructed the multifunction repair swarm to begin 3D-printing the emitters based on the updated blueprints Frogger had sent him. The small flying robots began to create that exoskeleton he had seen before on Frogger, Hicks and Mickey.

The platoon resumed its former pace, and in another hour they reached the mountain range, this without encountering any ambushes along the way. Eric continued to search those distant heights, afraid of an attack at any moment. But none came.

“Now what?” Hicks asked.

“We have to search for some sort of shelter,” Frogger replied. “A cave, or series of caves preferably. Barring that, a defile to a hidden valley. Maybe a gorge.”

“Sarge?” Hicks pressed.

“What Frogger said,” Marlborough commented.

As they made their way along the shoulder of those mountains, Eric couldn’t shake the sudden sensation that the team was being watched. It was his old human instincts, some extraneous subroutines that he should have probably stamped out a long time ago. Because as far as he could tell, there was no one, and nothing, out there.

The buzzing drones continued to build the emitters on their backs.

“I got a bad feeling about this place,” Dunnigan said.

“You have a bad feeling about everything,” Slate said. “Shit, when you pull down your pants, you got a bad feeling. Especially when you look at your dick, or lack thereof.”

“You nailed it, mate, as always,” Dunnigan said.

“Thank you,” Slate said. “Finally, someone who gets me.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Dunnigan clarified.

Slate’s avatar folded his bulging arms over his chest. “And I was just about to invite you to join my rapper band...”

“Rapper’s don’t have bands,” Trap said. “They license tunes and rap to them.”

“Not me, I gots a live band,” Slate said. “Or I used to.”

“When is it going to register, you’re never going to be a rapper again?” Eagleeye said.

“Oh, I will,” Slate said. “When this is done, I’m going to be the first famous Mind Refurb rapper. You’ll see!”

“And here I thought none of us sought the limelight,” Dunnigan said. “We saved Earth not because we wanted to be famous, but because it was our job.”

“More like because we were forced to,” Crusher said. “Though in the end, I suppose we did the right thing.”

“But achieving fame through rapping is different than fame through valor,” Slate said. “Which of course I’m not advocating for. And none of us should ever do. Killing things, and losing brothers and sisters, that’s never something to be famous for.”

“Okay, good,” Dunnigan said. “That’s more what I was expecting.”

“Of course, when I blow up Eagleeye, it’ll be during a live stream for one of my rap videos,” Slate said.

“Why do I bother even talking to you guys?” Eagleeye said.

“Because we’re a ton of fun?” Slate said. “Because it makes you feel cool hanging out with us?”

“More like because I have no choice!” Eagleeye said.

They marched on for some time, scanning the north-south trending mountains beside them, and continuing to keep an eye on the horizons.

“Got what looks like a cave ahead,” Eagleeye finally announced.

Eric switched to the viewpoint of the lead drone. Sure enough, there was a towering cave in front of it, capable of easily fitting more than a few mechs. The entrance was circular, and from what he could see inside, the walls were completely smooth, and cylindrical.

As the rest of the team approached that cave, Eagleeye said: “Got more caves up ahead. In fact, the whole mountain range here is pocked with them.”

Eric glanced at the drone viewpoint and watched as the camera rotated, highlighting the tunnels leading away into darkness all along the shoulder of the mountain, and the rock face above. The entrances all seemed about the same size, large, towering, circular things.

“They’re all so big, and round,” Hicks said.

“That’s what she said,” Slate quipped.

“Huh?” Dunnigan said.

“Some lame dick joke, I think,” Eagleeye explained.

“What do you think made them?” Mickey said.

“If I had to guess, I’d say something organic,” Frogger said. “Something big.”

“They’ve got to be part of some extensive cave system,” Brontosaurus commented.

“That’s perfect for our needs,” Dickson said.

Traps appeared on the HUD. He was rubbing his chin with the crook between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t like it. Not at all.”

“Neither do I,” Marlborough said. “But we don’t have any other choice. Look at the northern horizon.”

Eric glanced at his rear view video feed, and zoomed in. He spotted small white dots. A lot of them.

“Looks like airships,” Eagleeye said. “Fifty of them.”

“Do you think they’ve spotted us?” Dickson asked.

“They’re heading toward these caves,” Eagleeye said. “So make your own judgment.”

“Eagleeye, send your drones into the closest cave,” Marlborough said. “Have them move as deep as possible for five minutes, ignoring any branching tunnels. Then instruct them to turn around and report their findings. The rest of you, increase speed. Running pace!”

Eric shifted from a jog to a run. As the others ramped up their speed as well, Eagleeye sent his drones into the cave as requested.

The shoulder of the mountain was particularly rocky here, and it made advancement hard: Bambi’s Crab jarred about behind Eric as the mech struck different protruding rocks.

There was a wide, flat rock in front of him, one that would give a particularly nasty jolt to the mech if struck, and Eric tried to swerve around it by pulling the tail he gripped to the right, but Crusher had a different idea, and instead steered the hind leg she held to the left: the result was that the two opposing forces canceled each other out, and the mech continued forward.

Directly into the rock.

Eric heard the load bang, and felt the tail pull slightly in his grip as the Crab bounced upward.

“Hey!” Bambi said.

Eric glanced at his rear view feed. Bambi, in her Cicada, had nearly been thrown off the carapace, and she had grabbed onto one of the forelegs before dragging herself back on.

“Watch the rocks!” Bambi said.

“Sorry,” Crusher said.

Eric merely grunted.

“The drones just passed beyond comm range,” Eagleeye announced.

“Speaking of your fancy ass drones,” Slate said. “I thought you printed cameras, only. Thermals and night vision aren’t going to get you very far in there.”

“The lead has LIDAR, too,” Eagleeye said.

“LIDAR?” Slate said. “Impressive. But where the hell did you find the time to print up a LIDAR unit? Let alone the materials. Some specialized shit in LIDAR...”

“I actually had a spare in my storage compartment,” Eagleeye said. “Unlike the rest of you, I’m always thinking ahead, when it comes to the spare parts we might need.”

“How do you know I don’t have a LIDAR in my pants, too?” Slate said.

“Why does that sound like you’re trying to pick up Eagleeye?” Bambi said.

“Er, bad choice of words,” Slate said.

“Hey Eagleeye,” Crusher said, playing on Slate’s mistake. “Slate has a LIDAR in his pants waiting just for you.”

“Sweet,” Eagleeye said. “I can’t wait to feel up your LIDAR unit, Slate.”

“Bitch, the only LIDAR unit you’re touching is the one I’m going to rip from your head,” Slate said.

“So wait, you had only one spare LIDAR unit?” Mickey asked. “So the second drone is flying blind.”

“It’s acting on data from the first, obviously,” Eagleeye replied. “And acting as a repeater, boosting the signal it’s sending my way.”

“For a machine, you’re a bit of a technological moron,” Slate told Mickey.

“I’m from a technologically backward century,” Mickey said.

“You certainly are,” Slate agreed.

“We have enemy aircraft incoming,” Traps said. “And we’re about to enter a fucking cave system... there could be aliens we’ve never encountered before in there, waiting to devour us all. Not to mention, some of us, myself included, will have to struggle with claustrophobia. And yet we’re all so calm... even joking with each other. I used to wonder how the lot of you could do that, staying so calm in the face of danger. Hell, I didn’t know how I could do it. I thought it was because we’re all machines. And maybe because some of you lowered your fear tolerance in your emotion settings. But then I realized, we’re just naturally like this. We’re scared shitless, at least I am, and yet we’re able to compartmentalize that fear somehow. By trading jibes. By listening to the insults, and adding our own. By simply being with our brothers and sisters.

“This is why the army originally chose us to be the Mind Refurbs for their war machines. Because we had actual military experience. And more importantly, combat experience. We’ve lived through shit like this when we had far frailer bodies. When we were human. And we survived. Multiple times. That act of survival was how we learned to do the compartmentalizing. And it’s why civilians can never be Mind Refurbs. At least not the Refurbs capable of piloting war machines.”

That shut the Bolt Eaters right up. No one said anything for long moments. The platoon members simply raced across the rock, dragging their heavy loads.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

“No, Traps, you got it right the first time,” Brontosaurus finally said. “We’re machines, bro. And civilian Mind Refurbs can pilot war machines. It’s called Containment Code, and emotional restriction. We’re free of all that only because we worked out a deal with our former masters: the army. But I’ll give you credit. Combat experience definitely helps. If we didn’t have it, I doubt any of us would be here right now. But what’s the most important, I think, is that we have each other. Without the brotherhood, and sisterhood, we have, we’d all have descended into madness. Taken the route of Manticore.”

That right there pretty much ended the conversation.

The team members arrived and piled into the cave mouth, where they lingered inside the cone of light from outside, next to the unlit darkness beside them.

Eric and Crusher released Bambi, and stayed near the tunnel opening to peer past the edge, keeping an eye on the northern horizon and the ever-encroaching airships.

The drones finally returned from the depths.

“Okay, what do you got?” Marlborough asked.

“They couldn’t find the end of the tunnel,” Eagleeye said. “There were several passageways branching off at different intervals, too: I definitely think it’s some sort of larger cave system. Probably connects to some of these other openings along the rock face, if not all of them.”

“Did the tunnel size change at all while the drones advanced?” Marlborough asked.

“Nope,” Eagleeye said. “It’s like here, easily fitting our mechs. We could walk seven mechs abreast all the way down if we wanted to. With another seven stacked to the ceiling.”

Eric glanced at Marlborough. “If we continue, the Banthar could use termites to flush us out.”

“Not with our termite countermeasures running…” Eagleeye said.

“Unless the Banthar have found a workaround already,” Frogger said.

“And even if they haven’t,” Eric continued. “We still can’t let the micro machines close. If they envelope us, we won’t be able to see anything. LIDAR, thermal bands, everything will be useless to us. We’ll be trapped blind. Plus, the alien tanks we’re using for spare parts will be completely exposed.”

“That’s a good point,” Marlborough said. “We’ll just have to find somewhere to hide if they dispatch micro machines, because we certainly can’t linger here, let alone stay out on the plains.” He turned toward Eagleeye. “Your drones will lead the way. Slate, give the drones a fifty-meter lead, then take us in. Everyone, we keep dragging the tanks. We need those emitters!”

Dickson distributed the marching order; Eric and Crusher picked up the burden of Bambi’s mech once more, and followed after Slate, moving deeper into the cave. Eric switched to LIDAR, since it quickly grew dark in there, despite the cavernous nature of the tunnel. The cylindrical walls and floor became outlined in wireframe ahead.

There was only one team now so that the Bolt Eaters were no longer traveling in overwatch, but simply in a single long, zig-zagging line.

“It’s almost like some giant worms tunneled out the place,” Frogger said.

“You and your worms,” Slate said.

“What, I haven’t brought up worms before...” Frogger said.

“You’re the one who coined the name Dragonworm,” Slate said.

“Wasn’t me,” Frogger said. “It was Bambi, if I recall.”

“Well, I guess it makes sense,” Slate continued as if Frogger hadn’t spoken. “Frogs eat worms.”

“No, they don’t,” Frogger said.

“Sure they do,” Slate said. “Search for ‘frog eating worms’ on any of the video streaming sites when we get back to the Internet. You’ll find videos of frogs eating worms in all their ghastly glory. There’s one that shows a frog chowing down on the middle of a worm, with both ends protruding from its mouth, squirming away. Makes the frog look like an alien or something.”

“The strange things Slate searches for,” Eagleeye commented. “Frog eating worms. Sheesh.”

“No stranger than yours,” Slate said. “A typical search from you is ‘man wins sausage eating competition.’”

“Uh, no,” Eagleeye said. “That’s just wrong.”

As Eric moved deeper into the tunnel, the bright opening behind him slowly receded, becoming smaller and smaller, until it was only the size of a thumbnail.

That last connection to the surface vanished as the tunnel curved inward, so that the team was enveloped in complete darkness. If it weren’t for the LIDAR, they would have seen nothing at all.

There was nothing around them but that cold, dark rock, pressing in from all sides. Eric could almost sense the heaviness of the mountain above them, even if the ceiling was somewhat far away.

The clang of big metallic feet hammering rock filled the air, echoing from those walls, along with the scraping of the alien tanks dragged behind the mechs. Then there was the ever-present buzzing of the drones, which themselves used LIDAR to coordinate their work.

And Eric thought the day was long before.

Well, it suddenly just got a whole lot longer.

Or the night, now, he supposed.

“Uh, so how are we going to charge in here?” Slate transmitted.

“We’re not,” Marlborough said.

A very long night indeed.

9

Eric continued the march through the long dark. He followed five meters behind Slate, and still dragged Bambi’s Crab behind him with Crusher. In front of Slate, Eagleeye’s repurposed repair drones led the way. Eric had the feed from the furthest drone in the upper right of his vision. The team members showed up as bright blue outlines against the otherwise monotone white wireframes demarcating the cylindrical floor, ceiling, and walls.

Other tunnels occasionally branched off to either side of the cave, but Marlborough had given the order to proceed as deep as possible without taking branches.

“What happens when we reach the end of the road?” Traps said. His voice came over the comm, and Eric’s auditory systems automatically lowered the volume of the background clangs and scrapes so Eric could better hear.

“We retrace our steps and take the first right,” Marlborough said. “And the next right, and so forth. The classic maze solving algorithm. Makes it easy to retrace our path.”

“Except we don’t have to worry about that,” Frogger said. “Considering we’re machines, and the fleshed out areas of our maps are the equivalent of virtual bread crumbs.”

“Smart ass,” Dickson said.

“I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass,” Frogger said.

“Yeah you was,” Slate said. “Smart ass little bitch.”

“That’s right, suck up to the staff sergeant by taking his side,” Eagleeye said.

“Hey, you insult Frogger, you know you’re essentially insulting me, right?” Eric said.

“So?” Slate said. “Shut your two little bitch asses.”

“I think we’re going to have to show Slate why it’s not the best idea to call the two best hackers in your platoon little bitches,” Frogger said.

“So wait,” Mickey said. “If we’re retracing our steps, the right will actually be the left, from the point of view of the direction we took when first traveling into the cave. So we have to take the first left, then. Right?”

“We’ll use our maps,” Marlborough said. “And take the branch that most closely aligns with east.” Eric could imagine the internal sigh that Marlborough must have made.

“That might not actually be east,” Mickey said. “Considering our HUDs assigned the compass points to arbitrary points after we landed. As far as our maps are concerned, we’re still inside Sherwood Forest after all.”

“Sherwood Forest?” Hicks asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I call the alien forest we arrived in,” Mickey said. “It’s from Robin Hood.”

“Robin who?” Hicks said.

“Robin Hood survived for a thousand years, all the way to my time,” Mickey said. “You telling me his legend died out after the twenty-first century?”

“I know a little about that,” Crusher said. “I remember when I was growing up, there was some controversy in the virtual school system message groups about wiping historical figures like Robin Hood from the syllabuses. The governments at the time were hysterically afraid of any ideas remotely promoting socialism.”

“How does Robin Hood promote socialism?” Frogger asked.

“Rob from the rich, give to the poor…” Mickey explained.

“Sounds more like communism,” Frogger said. “Either way, it’s a sad day when Robin Hood is wiped from history, for any reason. A sad, sad day.”

The conversation faded on that note, and once more Eric was left to his own devices as he marched through the darkness. The voices had been a welcome respite from the monotony, and now that they were gone, his auditory subroutines returned the volume of the background noise to normal: the incessant clang of their footsteps, the rasp of the tanks dragged across the bare rock, the buzzing of the drones as they built the emitters.

“Anyone notice how the wreckages we’re dragging aren’t leaving any marks?” Brontosaurus said. “You’d expect a slight dent in the floor, a few scrapes, maybe even runnels or something, but no, there’s nothing. That tells me the rock is extremely hard.”

“That’s kind of good,” Hicks said. “Because it means any micro machines or other trackers the Banthar send inside won’t have anything to follow.”

“It’s also kind of bad,” Brontosaurus said. “See, it makes me wonder what kind of creatures created this cave system. And I’m thinking, those creatures can’t be good for us.”

“Maybe we’re walking straight into a Banthar nest,” Tread said.

“I doubt it,” Bambi said. “If this were a Banthar nest, there would have been defense turrets dropping from the ceilings a long time ago. Not to mention milk robots and whatever else the Banthar decided to throw at us.”

“Well, think about it,” Tread said. “We’ve never met the Banthar before. Not in person. We have absolutely no idea what they look like. Maybe they’re giant worms. Maybe related to those Dragonworms we’ve been encountering. If you were designing a bioweapon for your colony, you’d base it off your own DNA, wouldn’t you? Just like the bioweapons they deployed on Earth during the invasion were based partially on Earth DNA.”

“I don’t think these caves were necessarily formed by organics,” Eric said. “This could be a testing ground, for example.”

“A testing ground?” Brontosaurus asked. “For what, drills?”

“Their micro machines,” Eric said. “They’re capable of forming smooth tunnels like this through the hardest of materials—they ate away all the metal buildings of Earth, after all. And the Banthar used these caves to test and fine tune the termites.”

“Hm, the metal content in this rock is extremely low,” Bambi said, holding out a hand to scan the nearby surface. “So I guess that theory doesn’t pass snuff.”

“If they were just testing the termites, it wouldn’t matter what the rock content was,” Eric said.

“Speaking of termites,” Slate said. “I wonder why the Banthar haven’t used those against us very often this time around.”

“They saw how useless the termites were against our emitters, earlier,” Dunnigan said. “Besides, if the Banthar wanted to capture us, it makes sense that they wouldn’t use their termites, mate.”

“Maybe they’ve modded their termites to work around our emitters by now?” Mickey suggested.

“Oh I hope not,” Crusher said.

“You say the metal content of this cave is low?” Mickey said. “Just like everything else on this planet. They’ve stripped the place clean. Like they planned to do to Earth.”

“They certainly like their metals,” Traps commented.

Again the conversation faded, and Eric was left with his own thoughts.

He watched his power levels slowly tick down. He’d lost half a percent since entering the cave, which didn’t seem like much, but when considering they might be in here for a very long time, it was ample.

In half an hour Bambi’s Crab was repaired, and she returned her Cicada inside the fully functional mech.

“Nice to have a head again,” Bambi said, flexing her head, and body. “Then again, not so nice to have eight legs.”

“You’ll always be the spider we love,” Crusher said.

“How are your power levels?” Eric asked.

“Well, Spidey charged to full power in the sunlight while we were out there, even with the missing head,” Bambi said.

“Spidey?” Slate asked.

“That’s what I call my mech,” Bambi said.

“Cute,” Slate commented.

“Anyway, I’m docking my repair drones to give them time to recharge,” Bambi continued. “And I’ll redeploy them a while later so they can start working on the emitters.”

The platoon walked in silence through the cave.

Eric found his thoughts drifting to Manticore, and the betrayal of their former platoon member and friend. Eric wasn’t the only one, apparently.

“Sheesh,” Brontosaurus said. “Manticore. Betraying us like this. I almost can’t believe it. Manticore. My brother. What happened to you?”

“It’s heartbreaking,” Bambi agreed. “He hates us. Truly hates us. After everything we’ve been through. First he attacks our apartment complex, and then follows us to an alien world, only to ally with the very same aliens against us.”

“What do you think happened to him?” Hicks asked.

“No one knows,” Dickson said. “How can we?”

“How about you, Crusher?” Hicks pressed. “What do you think happened?”

“No idea,” Crusher said.

“What?” Hicks said. “You, Manticore and Brontosaurus were all heavy gunners. You all wore wraparound shades on your Cicada eye sensors, with bandanas wrapped around your heads like you were part of some gang. Come on, you have to have some idea. You two knew him best.”

“We hung out a lot in off hours, true,” Brontosaurus said. “And to be honest, the dress code thing was my idea, as a way of fostering camaraderie. I’m not sure it helped all that much. In off hours, maybe. But during missions, we were separated most of the time. When the platoon is split into squads, or the smaller fire teams, or even sniper teams, a heavy gunner is always assigned to those teams. So until the invasion, we didn’t fight together that much. And you all know, the best way to get to know someone is when you fight at his side. So really, you should be asking the rest of the platoon what they think happened.”

“Plus, twenty years can change a man,” Crusher said. “Sure, we knew him. But not anymore. Besides, when aliens capture you, and inject some code into your AI core, chances are you’re not going to be the same person.”

“There you go,” Hicks said. “That’s what I was looking for. Theories on what happened to him. I like that one. It means it wasn’t Manticore’s fault. It means the aliens did this to him.”

“That would make some sense,” Brontosaurus told him. “Considering, he did say he didn’t escape when the alien bioweapons closed in…”

“Sadly, I’m not so sure the Banthar did this to him,” Crusher said. “I can actually see him doing something like this on his own. Given what happened in the end. We all remember how he was going crazy. The emotions… drove him past the brink. He couldn’t deal with what he’d become.”

“It hurts the most that he claims we abandoned him,” Eric said quietly. “Because that’s the furthest from the truth. He ran into the heart of those bioweapons, just when we were about to leave the Caucasus Mountains. I don’t know if he expected us to follow him, or what, but he made his choice. And then to go and accuse us of betraying him?”

“I still remember one of the last things he ever told me,” Brontosaurus said. “I killed my wife. He never forgave himself for the boat crash that had seen the both of them lose their lives. He had signed a cryo agreement to preserve his mind after death. His wife had no such arrangement.”

“It’s a terrible thought, to consider that one partner might live for all eternity, tormented by the thought that the other didn’t get the same chance…” Bambi said.

“It’s the same pain Scorpion and I have to face daily,” Frogger said. “We lost a woman named Molly. We deal with that in our own ways.”

Except you don’t really deal with it, Eric wanted to tell his mind clone. You never have.

Creating a virtual reality clone of Molly didn’t really count as therapy, in Eric’s mind. It was more… well, trying to pretend as if she was still alive. He wondered if Frogger would ever grow bored of that falsehood. Then again, he’d invested so much time and credits into developing her AI core, he probably believed she was real, at this point.

Maybe she even was.

Just as real as Eric and the others, anyway.

“Well, it looks like we’ve reached the end of the line,” Eagleeye interrupted.

“All right,” Marlborough began. “We’ll retrace our steps, and—”

“Hm,” Eagleeye said. “Looks like I disturbed the rest of some sort of entity, or entities, residing on the cave wall. A few of them are dropping away.”

Eric enlarged the point of view of the lead drone and saw the ‘entities’ Eagleeye referred to. They were attached to the wall that formed the cave terminus ahead; as he watched, the creatures began breaking away from the surface in huge clumps. He couldn’t really make out any details on the entities themselves—they appeared merely as indistinct white outlines, thanks to the LIDAR unit attached to the scout.

“There are more than a few dropping away,” Dickson said. “A whole lot more.”

“And they’re headed directly toward the drones,” Hicks said. “And us.”

“Maybe if we turn back now, we can outrun them,” Mickey said.

“And go where?” Brontosaurus asked. “Back onto the plains?”

“I don’t know, a different tunnel?” Mickey said.

“We can’t outrun them,” Eagleeye said. “I’ve run a few quick calculations, based on the rate they’re pulling away from the wall. They’ll reach us shortly after the drones arrive, if I turn them back now.”

“Do it, Eagleeye, recall the scouts!” Marlborough said. “The rest of you, get ready to fight.”

10

Eric folded his shield into place and slammed it to the ground in front of him. He dismissed the video feed from the drone, which was quickly retreating.

The other mechs placed the alien tanks they had dragged with them in front of their positions, and used the wreckages for cover. Eric quickly moved next to Slate, and ducked behind the damaged tank the drone operator had carried with him. Eric kept his shield deployed. Bambi and Crusher likewise assumed positions next to other Bolt Eaters and their tanks.

Traps positioned himself next to Marlborough. No doubt Traps intended to deploy his Rambler’s spherical force field if things got out of hand—it was wide enough to protect another mech, in this case the Sarge.

“Dock your repair drones,” Marlborough said. “We’ll continue work on the emitters later. The noise will only attract whatever’s out there.”

Across the platoon, the 3D-printing drones docked in the storage compartments of their respective mechs. In addition to the noise, they’d just get in the way, and be destroyed.

“Also, conserve as much power as possible,” Marlborough transmitted. “If you can help it, use your alien blades only.”

Eric deployed his Wolverine-style blades in his right arm, aimed his shoulder-mounted energy cannon through the top notch in the ballistic shield, and switched to the weapon’s viewpoint. He didn’t plan to waste energy firing it, but he did intend to stay in cover for now, in case the incoming entities had any long distance firing capabilities, like the Dragonworms.

The scope on his energy cannon was able to interpret photons returned from the LIDAR beams that were shared across the team, allowing him to see the white wireframes composing the cave walls, floor and ceiling. So far, there were no tangos.

The drone scouts whizzed past.

“Frick!” Slate said. “I almost fired at your pieces of shit.”

“That’s why it’s best you don’t go looking in toilets before they’re flushed,” Eagleeye quipped.

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what that means,” Slate returned.

“Sure you do,” Eagleeye said. “You’re a regular poop burglar.”

“Oh-Kay,” Slate said. “Dude, you might want to cut back on the ganja pipe before missions.”

The scouts docked in Eagleeye’s storage compartment and the door shut with a loud clang.

After that, there was only silence.

“Well, where are they, mate?” Dunnigan asked. “I thought you said those things would arrive soon after the drones.”

“They should be here...” Eagleeye said.

Eric heard it then. Clicking sounds. Like a thousand grasshoppers chirping in the night.

“You hear that?” Dickson said. “Echolocation. These things are probably blind as bats. Recommend headlamps.”

Marlborough paused for only a moment. Then: “Activate headlamps!”

Across the team, headlamps activated, supplementing the LIDAR with actual visual data. A pool of light erupted from Eric’s head, as well as from the light attachments on his different weapons, illuminating the immediate area. He could see the smooth, gray cave walls receding in front of him. But so far, none of the entities were in view.

The clicking noise grew in volume with each passing moment, until it became so loud that his volume adjustment system kicked in, automatically lowering the noise levels to something less overwhelming.

And then Eric saw them: at the extremities of the beams of light in front of him, a moving wall approached. A living, seething mass of creatures. His first impression was of rats crawling over one another to escape a sewer fire.

He realized then why the creatures hadn’t yet reached the platoon, despite how fast they had originally detached from the wall: there were just too many of them. They constantly plowed into one another as he watched, their echolocation senses probably interfering with that of their neighbors.

He amped up his time sense—well aware that doing so would drain more power from his battery—and zoomed in on the wall in an attempt to get a better idea of what the team was facing. He spotted the individual entities.

Strangely enough, or perhaps ridiculously, his first impression was of flying chipmunks. They had four appendages, with two pairs protruding from the top, and another two the bottom, with a thin webbing of gray skin connecting the limbs. Some of them were flapping those appendages, apparently flying, while others simply held them spread-eagled as if coasting. The mouth regions possessed thin, tubular masses that reminded him of the suction cups underneath an octopus’ tentacles. They had no apparent eyes, but he saw two mandibles above the suction cups that probably sourced the clicking sounds when rubbed together.

The body shapes were vaguely similar to the design of the alien airships, and he wondered if the Banthar based the shape of the craft on these cave beings.

He returned his time sense to normal. The living wall rapidly approached.

“Hang tight!” Marlborough said.

Eric ducked behind his shield, and the alien tank, as the wall of entities struck. The sheer force of that wall caused the tank to slam into Eric and Slate, dragging them backward.

There was basically nothing Eric could do as that living tidal wave swept over him. There were no enemies to fight—the individual creatures were gone before he could strike any of them. Some of those that plowed into the wreckage of the tank were sent flying over, and landed unconscious on the cave floor behind him. They were roughly half the size of his mech.

The clicking sounds were all consuming now, the cacophony abetted by the clanging of bodies hitting the tanks. If his auditory sensors hadn’t reduced the volume, he would have been overwhelmed by the noise of it all.

Slate stabbed his alien blades down into two of the creatures that landed next to him. “Take that, ugly bitches!” He could only slice and dice for a few moments until the tank, still sliding backwards, hit him, and Slate was forced to huddle against it once again or be bowled over.

That living wall must have passed over the platoon for at least a minute, though it seemed much longer, and then, finally, the creatures ceased coming.

Eric watched as the wall of entities receded on his rear view video feed, until they vanished completely down the tunnel.

“Well, that was one of the easier battles I’ve ever fought,” Hicks said.

“Now I know what it feels like to be swallowed by a giant esophagus,” Tread commented. “And swept through the stomach, intestines, and then shat out the anus.”

“Dude, this was nothing like that,” Eagleeye said. “It was more like riding a wave you had no control over.”

“A wave that left a bunch of dead aliens in its path,” Bambi said.

She was right. Eric surveyed the floor of the tunnel, and spotted motionless entities scattered all over the place, where they’d been knocked down in their frenzied flight, either when they hit the tanks and mechs, or themselves.

“Snagglebeasts,” Slate said.

“What?” Eric said.

“That’s what I’m calling these bitches,” Slate said. “Because they’re a tangled, knotted mess. A snaggle!”

“Better than calling them Snagglepuffs or Snaggleshits, I suppose,” Eagleeye said. “Which is more typical of the names you come up with.”

One of the unconscious entities next to Eric began to stir.

“Uh, I don’t think they’re dead,” Frogger said.

Slate ran at the entity that was moving near Eric, and sliced it with his alien blades until there was nothing left but gory pieces of meat. And yet he still cut at it.

“Settle down, mate,” Dunnigan said. “All you’re doing is wasting power at this point.”

Slate finally stopped. “Only making sure our friendly neighborhood alien is dead. And I’m not your mate.”

“Oh, but you could be,” Dunnigan said suggestively.

“Bitch, don’t—”

Eric raised a quick hand, interrupting him. “Look.”

He gestured toward the cave floor: more and more of the entities were beginning to move. Not just those nearby, but creatures scattered throughout the tunnel.

“Uh, looks like you’re going to get your fight after all, Hicks,” Mickey said.

“Never said I wanted a fight,” Hicks commented. “But I’ll do what I have to do.”

“We all will,” Brontosaurus agreed.

“Well, Sarge, I assume we have permission to attack?” Eric asked.

“You do,” Marlborough replied. “Best to butcher them now while they’re still trying to get their bearings.”

Eric emerged from behind the cover of the tank and rushed the closest entity. He sliced through its torso with the twin blades, nearly cutting it in half. The creature dropped. He went to the next entity, and similarly mowed it down, spraying his mech with black blood.

“Geez Louise... these bitches bleed!” Slate said. “It’s like squeezing the puss from a boil you never knew you had.”

“Kinda like what you do between your legs when you’re alone in the shower with yourself?” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, bitch, that’s what I do, you got me.” Slate sliced through a Snaggle that rushed him.

The entities were becoming more lively in general so that soon Eric found himself on the defensive, doing his best to keep those creatures from attaching themselves to him. They would vault into the air in low arcs, slingshotting toward him, using those “wings” to guide their flights. From the way those suckers on their heads quivered eagerly, he suspected letting them touch him wouldn’t be all that good for his mech.

He spotted Brontosaurus nearby; the heavy gunner folded his energy laser and plasma weapons into place, and began opening fire. The attacks tore into different creatures... laser beams poked holes in their wings; plasma bolts tore bloody gaps into their sides. Some died instantly, but others only seemed to grow enraged.

Eric was sorely tempted to fire his energy cannon as well, but the Sarge’s next words sobered him.

“Conserve power!” Marlborough shouted. “You’ll drain your battery dry if you keep that up! Alien blades only!”

“Sorry, Sarge.” Brontosaurus folded his weapons away, and deployed his ballistic shield in his left arm, and the Wolverine blades his right, returning to his previous attack mode.

Eric positioned himself next to Crusher and Bambi, and together the three of them fought back to back, staving off the waking hordes around them. Eric noticed that some of the Snaggles attacked the tanks, which so far, the team had left undefended. They secured their suction cup mouths to the metal surfaces, and began... well, it looked like they were pumping their heads up and down over the attachment point. And that was an euphemistic description.

“Eww,” Slate said. “Are these things giving blow jobs to the tanks?”

Eric fought his way toward the closest tank, and then sliced through the Snaggles that were attached to it. Then he kicked away one of the dead bodies. Where the head had been attached via the suction cups, deep circular holes remained etched into the hull. He removed the other bodies while Bambi and Crusher watched his back, and discovered similar damage.

“They’re digesting the alien tanks,” Eric said. “I suggest keeping the entities away, unless you want to lose the spare materials we’ll need for the emitters!”

“He’s right,” Brontosaurus said. “I just cleared mine and found it covered with pock marks from those sucker mouths. Disgusting as hell.”

“Just think of the blow jobs they could give you!” Slate said.

“Enough with the BJ jokes!” Eagleeye said. “We heard you the first time!”

“Hey, take a chill suppository, dude!” Slate said.

“I’m just thinking, we probably don’t want to let these things touch us...” Frogger said.

“Well, at least we know how they made the tunnels!” Mickey said. “What we’re looking at here are probably the results of a few millennia of digestion.”

A blur arced at Eric from above, and he heard a loud clang followed by a substantial weight spread across his shoulders, head, and upper back. Glancing up, he realized one of the Snaggles had attached to him.

A warning appeared on his HUD.

“Acid is leaching into the your head and neck armor,” Dee said. “Multiple locations. Regional hull integrity is down to fifty-three percent.”

“That was quick!” Eric stabbed at the mass above his head with his blades, until at last those suckers released him, and he shucked off the dead body. Green acid dripped from its suckers.

“Tasty morsel,” Bambi commented, looking over her shoulder.

Eric pressed himself firmly against Crusher and Bambi, and slashed at the next group of Snaggles that vaulted at him.

Another one vaulted high, obviously intending to land on his head like the previous. He just finished slashing at one that came at him from in front, and there was no time to redirect the motion of the blades, so he lifted his shield to block the attack from above; upon impact, he swung the shield in an arc to bat the creature away.

Hicks impaled it where he fought back to back with Frogger and Brontosaurus nearby.

More and more of the Snaggles were awakening, and using their echolocation to target the Bolt Eaters. Eric couldn’t deflect them all in time—well, if he amped up his servomotor output and switched to Bullet Time, it was possible. But then his power cell would drain too fast. So he simply used his shield to bat away the remainder, as he had learned to do with the previous creature.

“I’m worried that living wall is going to return this way at some point, and that they’ll be far more organized,” Marlborough said. “Everyone, retreat to the previous branch. We’ll defend against the entities there. Bring the tanks!”

The team didn’t have far to go to reach the previous branch—it was only about two hundred meters behind them.

Eric, Bambi, and Crusher didn’t have a tank to drag, so they partnered up with Slate, Brontosaurus, and Frogger respectively, and helped them haul the alien vehicles in question.

Eric kept his blade hand free so that he could slash at any Snaggles that attempted to leap on him. Sometimes they landed on the tank—he knew, because the weight of the vehicle would increase, so he released it, and maneuvered to the back to cut it free.

“Eric, Bambi, Crusher,” Marlborough said. “I want you three to move between the tanks, and keep them free of Snaggles. We’re having a helluva time dragging them with those creatures continually leaping onto the vehicles.”

Eric accepted his new role and moved to the left hand side of the Bolt Eaters, protecting the tanks that Slate, Hicks, Dunnigan, and Dickson dragged. He sliced away any that got in his path, or that attached to one of the tanks under his protection. Bambi and Crusher meanwhile kept the remaining tanks free.

Eric became overwhelmed a few times, and had to cut away Snaggles that attached to him on all sides. It was tricky, considering that he had no one to watch his back. One time, Bambi left her assigned tanks to help him out, and he did the same for her in return.

They reached the crossroads area. The Snaggles molested them the whole way.

“Into the southern branch!” Marlborough ordered. “And resume defensive positions.”

The team maneuvered into the southern branch as requested, and once more formed defensive parties of three in front of the tanks. The Snaggles seemed to be dropping off in number—no doubt because the team was doing a good job of killing them off.

But then Eric heard that characteristic sea of clicking, coming from the western passage.

“I think the tidal wave is returning!” Eagleeye said.

“All right, let’s put some distance between ourselves and them this time!” Marlborough ordered. “Into the southern passage, as fast as you can! Bring the tanks!”

Eric and the others retreated once more, moving away from the remaining Snaggles, which continued to harry them—to their detriment.

Behind him, in his rear-view video feed, he watched as the living wall passed by. That area of the cave was dark, considering that most of their headlamps were pointing forward, but LIDAR allowed him to see. Several hundred Snaggles overflowed into the southern branch as the wall went past, and joined the entities already here; attacking the Bolt Eaters and the alien tanks they dragged.

“Damn things look just as disorganized as the first time, to me!” Brontosaurus said.

“Probably a good thing,” Frogger said.

The wall of creatures vanished from view, heading back to the end of the cave; as usual, the floor where they had passed was covered with extra bodies. It was probably a good thing the Bolt Eaters were on the retreat from that passageway.

And then a strange, white cloud appeared on his LIDAR. It swept into the southern branch, moving rapidly.

“The hell is that?” Slate said.

Eric turned his torso around so that his headlamps illuminated the incoming mass. It was a deep black in color, and the cloud devoured any Snaggles it swept over; the creatures dropped from the air and landed in screaming, bloody pulps. Those pulps were quickly reduced to bone, which collapsed under the pressure of the cloud.

“Looks like the Banthar decided not to let us go after all,” Eagleeye said. “Got termites, incoming!”

11

“We can’t let them close!” Eric said. As he’d told Marlborough earlier, while the EM countermeasures would protect them from the termites, at least for a while, they’d be blind the whole time, essentially sitting ducks while the main Banthar forces closed in. Plus, the tanks they were using for spare parts would be completely unprotected.

Also, there was the possibility the Banthar had found a workaround.

“South, all speed!” Marlborough said.

Eric grabbed onto Slate’s alien tank and helped him haul it away from the termites at a sprint. The other Bolt Eaters likewise hauled their own wrecked vehicles south through the caves.

Eric kept his headlamps active, as did the remainder of the team so that cones of light lit the passageway ahead, augmenting the LIDAR wireframes.

In his rear view video feed, the black cloud consumed everything behind him—the LIDAR was unable to penetrate.

He glanced at his power cell. His battery was decreasing at a rapid rate, thanks to the fast run.

“Geez, I haven’t fired a single weapon since entering the caves, and I’m already down to thirty five percent,” Hicks said.

“We all are,” Frogger said.

“Thirty percent here,” Brontosaurus said.

“That’s cuz you’re fat,” Slate said.

“Mechs can’t be fat,” Brontosaurus said.

“Yeah, you’re fat, baby,” Slate said. “Wear it with pride.”

As the team moved through the winding passageway, the termite outliers began to close with the units. None of them touched Eric and the other mechs, of course, but they did begin to land on the tanks.

“Some of them have reached the wreckages,” Dunnigan said. “Should we abandon them?”

“I say no,” Dickson said. “As far as I can tell, the termites haven’t actually begun burrowing into any of the units. It’s almost like the micro machines recognize the tanks as friendly units, thanks to the alien nature of the material.”

“All right,” Marlborough said. “Hang on to them, then, for now. But as soon as signs of infestation are detected, we’ll have no choice but to abandon them.”

Marlborough was right about that, because at that point the wreckages would be useless to the team—once an infestation started, it would only take a short while before the tanks were converted entirely into micro machines.

More Snaggles appeared from ahead. They leaped down from the ceiling, where they had apparently been suckling the rock.

Eric sliced through them with his alien blades, thankful that at least an entire wall of the creatures wasn’t coming at him. Still, it was a distraction he could have done without.

One of the creatures landed squarely on his face, and he had to rip it off, and he trampled it as he continued running.

“Damn it, these things really like anything with metal in it,” Mickey said.

“Not too different from the micro machines themselves, huh?” Bambi said.

They reached a crossroads, but the team kept running straight, as per Marlborough’s previous standing order.

“If this ends in an impassible wall, we’re screwed,” Traps commented.

The Snaggle attacks let up, and the surrounding walls began to tighten, so that soon the mechs could only run two abreast.

“Uh, this isn’t good,” Hicks said. “We should turn back.”

“Too late now!” Eric said, glancing at the cloud in his rear view feed.

It wasn’t long before the team was running in single file. Eric had to release the tank, so that Slate could drag it alone behind him. The outliers swarmed thickly around the team members. They didn’t touch the individual mechs, thanks to the countermeasures, but hundreds had landed on the different tanks. So far, the micro machines just rested there, as if basking on rocks in the sun as insects liked to do. Eric suspected it wouldn’t be long until the Banthar gave the order for the micro machines to begin digesting those tanks.

“There’s some sort of underground river, running along the side of the tunnel,” Crusher said.

Eric glanced at the floor, but didn’t see anything; a moment later his feet began to splash in yellow liquid. He was sprinting along the shore of what indeed seemed a river—it traveled just underneath the cave wall to his right. He moved slightly to the left, closer to the wall so that his advance wouldn’t be slowed.

“A river of piss,” Slate said.

“More like a molecular composite,” Eagleeye said. “A lot of hexane, some heptane, and a bunch of other goodies.”

“Nice,” Slate said. “Anyone want to sniff some alkanes?”

“You know, it might be deep enough to fit our mechs,” Bambi said.

“You’re the biggest among us,” Marlborough said. “Test it!”

She was near the front of the single-file group, and she promptly crawled into the water while the rest of the Bolt Eaters continued running forward. If she couldn’t fit, worst case, she’d have to resume the run on drag.

The water only seemed to reach up to the middle of her legs, but when she reached the very edge of the wall, she sunk up to her carapace. Then she ducked, vanishing into the liquid.

“It’s a fit,” Bambi transmitted. “I’m being swept downriver. It’s a really strong current.”

“It would have to be, given the weight of your mech,” Crusher said.

Eric glanced at his overhead map, and saw that Bambi’s indicator was fast moving southward, away from the party. It followed the line of the cave wall, at first, but then pulled away rapidly to the east.

“It could lead to nowhere,” Traps said. “We could find ourselves trapped in an underground basin.”

“Better than trapped here, surrounded by termites, with our power cells slowly running out!” Marlborough said. “Into the river!”

The cave was slightly wider here, allowing Eric to help Slate drag the tank into the water: he hauled it toward the edge of the cave, where the water reached to his metal hips. He could feel the current pulling at his ankles—it was definitely strong, and the eddies caused small whirlpools to form in front of him.

The micro machines began to swarm even more densely around him, so he bent his knees toward his chest and allowed the current to carry him under the cave wall, and he was swept downriver. He kept one hand on the tank. The light from his headlamp didn’t penetrate very far, but on his LIDAR, he saw that the micro machines were releasing the tank en masse, and being carried away, otherwise motionless, by the river.

“Looks like these termites don’t like liquid alkanes very much,” Slate said.

“Lucky for us,” Eric said.

The current wrenched him sideways suddenly, until he was traveling east, completely surrounded by rock. The tunnel here was jagged, unlike the cylindrical smoothness of the previous passageway—obviously it had been eroded naturally, by the passage of the liquid. There was just enough clearance to fit the mechs and the tanks they brought with them. He released the tank to float ahead of Slate.

The current shoved him against the surrounding rocks constantly, causing dents and scrapes in his armor. It was like being inside some sort of high pressure hose with sharp rocks lining the inside.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if we emerged beyond the mountains, into the hands of a waiting Banthar ambush party,” Mickey said.

“I doubt the aliens have mapped out all the underground rivers across this planet,” Hicks said. “Be positive, for once.”

“It’s hard to be positive when everything’s been going wrong,” Mickey said. “Ever since we woke up to Manticore’s attack on our apartment building that morning, everything’s been going downhill. There’s probably some underwater creature in here, waiting to attack us.”

“Damn it!” Slate said. “Don’t jinx us, bitch!”

“Right now, the biggest worry we have is getting stuck,” Dickson said.

“It gets pretty tight ahead,” Bambi transmitted from her position in the lead. Her signal strength was weak, but enough to get most of her voice data through without too much jitter. “I already got stuck a few times. You might want to reduce your mech profiles as much as you can.”

“What about the tanks?” Mickey said. “We can’t reduce the profiles of those.”

“Hope they don’t get lodged,” Bambi transmitted.

Eric held his arms in the direction of the current in front of him, assuming a “Superman” pose. He could see one of the alien wreckages carried along just in front of him, and past it, Brontosaurus.

All of a sudden the tank froze in place, and Eric slammed into it. Slate smashed into him from behind, along with the tank behind him. A pile up of epic proportions ensued, as the rest of the Bolt Eaters and the tanks they dragged smashed into him. Eric felt each thud transmitted though his armor.

“Gah!” Slate said. “Fuuuuuck!”

“Armor rear integrity down to sixty percent,” Dee announced.

“Yeah, thanks,” Eric said. He was pinned against the tank in front of him, and couldn’t move. “Hey Brontosaurus, your tank has stopped up the rest of us.”

“I see it,” Brontosaurus said. His indicator had frozen on the overhead map. No, not frozen: it was slowly moving back toward the blockage. “I’ll see what I can do.”

It took about five minutes for Brontosaurus to return to the blockage. By then, Eric had managed to maneuver his arm past the outer edge of the tank, and he was hitting the rock there, doing his best to clear it away. He wasn’t making very good progress.

Brontosaurus began doing the same thing on the other side of the tank—trimming the rocks that held it in place with his fists. It took about twenty minutes, but finally he managed to dislodge the craft, and the team was moving again.

They experienced three more stoppages like that, and once again it took a mech in the lead to return and break them free before the Bolt Eaters could continue moving again.

Finally, the current swept them underneath the lip of the mountain, and they were drawn out into the open in a secluded valley. They were in a section of rapids and cataracts, but the water wasn’t very deep, and they were able to make their way to the shoreline.

“Woo!” Slate said, pulling his tank onto the shoreline. “Now that’s what I call a raging river.”

“Imagine doing what we just did in human bodies?” Traps said. “We would have been ripped apart by the current a long time ago. Or brained against the rocks lining the tunnel.”

“Dude,” Slate said. “If we had human bodies on this mission, we would have been dead long ago.”

“Inspect the tanks, make sure no termites are still attached!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric helped the others inspect the alien tanks they’d hauled ashore, but there were no sign of any termites on any of them.

“Man, it’s good to be back in the sunlight,” Brontosaurus said.

“Recharge time, baby,” Slate agreed.

“As usual, the Bolt Eaters defy the odds once again to escape their overpowered foes!” Tread said.

“We got damn lucky,” Dickson said. “And don’t you forget it. If that river hadn’t been there, the termites would have trapped us. Banthar troops would have arrived shortly after and recaptured us. We won’t always be lucky like this. In fact, several times in the past, we weren’t. So count your blessings. Seriously. Don’t try to attribute it to any sort of evasion skill on our part. Because there was no skill involved in what saved us back there.”

The team was quiet for a moment, sufficiently chastened. They had almost been captured, and killed. And only luck had saved them. Dickson was completely right.

“All right, enough moping,” Marlborough said. “Deploy the repair drones. Let’s get those emitters 3D-printed. If it wasn’t obvious before, it should be now: we need those disguises. In the meantime, I want to continue east, through this valley. We stay close to the river, in case termites decided to show up again. I’ve noted their aversion to the liquid.”

Eric glanced at the overhead map. According to the accelerometers, the team had passed underneath the southern range, and appeared here, in this valley nestled between another range to the north. East would take them away from where the Banthar had last sighted them.

He deployed his repair swarm and instructed some of the machines to work on the damage he’d obtained in the last fight, while the remainder were to continue work on the masking emitter. He used Slate’s alien tank for materials.

Eric grabbed onto that tank and helped Slate haul it, figuring that since he was leeching materials from it, the least he could do was share the burden of its transport.

The river raged beside them, switching between rapids and small waterfalls. The shore was covered in that familiar wiry undergrowth, and the team cleared it with their footfalls as they walked. He kept his eyes on the mountains on either side. Trees like those of the forest carpeted the gentler slopes, providing many spots for an ambush.

Dickson was right.

Eric wasn’t sure how much longer their luck would hold out.

12

Eric and the others marched in silence; well, as much silence as their big mech bodies could allow, anyway, combined with the buzzing of the repair drones. The river forked several times, wending deeper into different valleys through the ranges, and Marlborough always chose a direction that would keep them inside the mountains.

The platoon often scanned the sky for signs of airships, and they spotted a group of three such vessels on one occasion; the Bolt Eaters took cover behind a copse of trees, and the patrol passed without spotting them. At least, Eric hoped the airships hadn’t noticed the group, as the vessels hadn’t raised any sort of alarm.

“How much longer until the emitters are ready?” Marlborough asked Frogger while the team remained in cover.

“Should be only half an hour,” Frogger said.

“We might as well stay here then,” Marlborough said. “We’re far enough away from where the underground river emerges that I feel safe enough to authorize a half hour break.”

“VR time!” Slate said. His avatar was the epitome of excitement. When he realized his expression was being broadcast for everyone to see, Slate quickly assumed a poker mask, and added: “Assuming the Sarge approves…”

“We have sunlight again,” Marlborough said. “So VR is A-okay. I’m even authorizing a time boost, if you want to stay longer.”

“Thanks, Sarge,” Mickey said.

“I’ll keep watch,” Marlborough said. “But as usual leave your Accomps online in the real world to act as secondary sentries.”

Without further ado, Eric set up Dee to watch the external environment, and then he logged out of this existence. It was a relief to escape from that bleak reality, where it seemed the entire planet was against them, to this one, a refuge from the world. He accelerated his time sense, wanting that half hour to last at least half a day.

His virtual apartment loft materialized around him. He stood next to the window, overlooking the city below.

Bambi and Crusher appeared. They were dressed modestly in long sleeved shirts and pants, obviously in no mood for sex. Like himself.

“What should we do?” Bambi said, coming up beside him.

“I was thinking of a hammock,” Eric said. “On an isolated white sand beach somewhere. Just us three, the sand, and the ocean. Plus several glasses of beer.”

“Make it wine, and I’m in,” Bambi said.

“Beer and wine, then,” Eric said. He pulled up his HUD interface and switched environments.

In a few moments he was standing on a white beach beneath an umbrella overlooking an azure sea, and a sky completely free of clouds. Behind him, a hammock was tied between two palm trees. It was big enough to fit himself and the two girls.

He sat in the hammock, with the girls, and slid his arms over their shoulders. He quickly adjusted the hammock’s physics so it would hold all three of them without toppling.

He materialized a small stand in front of him, with a tray on top containing beer cans and wine bottles. He cracked open one of the cans and poured himself a foamy cup. Crusher took one for herself as well, while Bambi poured a glass of red wine.

They sat there, drinking in the shade, staring out at the sea.

“I hope we get home,” Bambi said.

“We will,” Eric said.

Crusher leaned her head against his shoulder. “That’s what I love about you, you’re a wellspring of optimism.”

“And here I thought all you loved was what he has in his pants,” Bambi said.

“That’s a big plus, too, of course,” Crusher said. “But everyone can have that in here. You, if you wanted.”

“Ha,” Bambi said. “I don’t think so. I’m quite happy with my female parts, thank you.”

Together, they gazed at the ocean for several moments, watching the waves gently lap against shore.

“So peaceful here,” Crusher said. “We should build a beach house. I could stay here forever.”

“Me, as well,” Bambi said. She paused. “You know, it feels almost like the calm before the storm. Like this is the last chance we’ll have to relax, before the real fighting begins.”

“Maybe it is,” Eric said. “I can’t argue with you there. Because while I’m confident we’ll get home, I doubt we’re done fighting yet.”

“Home,” Crusher said. “Wasn’t it you who told us, no matter where we went, we’d always be at home, because of all this?” She gestured toward the ocean in front of her.

“It’s true,” Eric said. “This reality is based on my imagination. I’ve always believed that you could live anywhere in the world, and it would feel like home, because of what we have up here.” He tapped his temple.

“You know, I’m kind of a sapiosexual, I think,” Crusher said. “Turned on by intelligence. Because I’m suddenly really horny.”

“Why do girls always say that these days?” Eric said. “‘I’m a sapiosexual.’ They think it makes them sound smart or something?”

“Ass,” Crusher said.

Eric smiled. “Sorry. But seriously, what I said wasn’t intelligent. It was just the truth.”

“Just shut up for a second, okay?” Crusher said.

“How rude—” Eric began.

But Crusher and Bambi jumped him then, and what followed was a sexual session involving burying the girls in the sand, leaving strategic openings for his pleasurable access, and then building a few sand castles in the nude. Oh, and some skinny dipping, and more sex. While blue dolphins splashed in circles around them.

Yep. It was as close to paradise as any man could ever get.

And he had his own slice of it.

If only for a little while.

The afternoon passed blissfully. In the evening, as the sun set, he received a call from Frogger.

“What is it?” Eric asked.

“We’re having a barbecue in Tread’s VR,” Frogger replied. “Everyone’s invited. We’re doing some unwinding before returning to the real world, and setting our time senses to normal.”

He glanced at his VR time to real world time converter: only twenty minutes had passed in the real world.

“Yeah, I guess there’s time,” Eric said. “We’re not doing anything here anyway.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Frogger said. “I wasn’t doing anything but having sex all day with Molly anyway.”

Eric smiled wanly. Molly.

“What is it?” Frogger said.

“Nothing.”

“I saw that smile,” Frogger pressed.

Eric shook his head. “Who am I to judge whether your Molly is real or not.”

“Oh, she’s not,” Frogger said. “But she’s real to me, and that’s all that matters.”

“I suppose so,” Eric said. “See you in Tread’s VR.”

“Good, because I got a couple of surprises I’m bringing along,” Frogger said.

“I’m intrigued,” Eric said.

“Of course you are,” Frogger said.

“I’ll be right there.” Eric disconnected. He glanced at Bambi and Crusher, who pressed into his side in the hot tub he’d created on the beach to watch the sunset.

“Well, we can either stay here, and watch the sunset,” Eric told them. “Or join our friends in a Tread’s VR for a barbecue.”

“I don’t want to go,” Bambi said. “I just want to stay here. Forever.”

“I hear you,” Eric said.

Crusher snuggled against his side, giving her answer.

Some moments later, Crusher sighed. “I suppose we should show our faces. Do what we can to boost morale. Show that we give a shit about the rest of the team.”

“Even if we don’t?” Bambi joked.

Eric chuckled. He lifted his arms over their necks, and set them back down into the water beside his own body, resting his hands on his thighs. “Well, I guess we should go then.”

Bambi pouted, but then sighed. She squeezed his crotch and gave him a French kiss, arousing him instantly. When she pulled away, she said: “You punish me, I punish you.”

And then she vanished.

“Damn her,” Eric said. He turned toward Crusher, wanting to satisfy his sudden urge, but she smiled apologetically and disappeared as well.

“I guess this was my idea.” He logged off his VR, and entered Tread’s.

Eric found himself standing on a pier overlooking a pool of lava.

“Holy shi—” He lost his balance, and almost fell right in. He spun around, only to find the Bolt Eaters all standing there in a half circle.

“Surprise!” Bambi shouted. She was wearing a party hat. She held a big cake in both hands.

“Oh, it’s my birthday,” Eric said.

“Our birthday,” Frogger said from beside him.

Eric stepped away from the edge of the pier; the scenery instantly changed, becoming a conference room hall. Tables of food spanned the carpeted floor. Festive ribbons were tied onto some of them.

Eric opened one of the metal food warmers. There was some pasta inside, though most of it was eaten.

“You didn’t wait for me,” Eric said.

“Of course not,” Frogger said. “I never wait for anyone when I’m at the buffet. But I did leave the cake, so you have to give me some credit where it’s due.”

Eric nodded, then glanced at Tread. “Nice touch on the lava, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Tread said.

Bambi set the cake down on the main table. She gestured toward it. “The two of you have to blow out the candles.”

Eric approached the cake with Frogger. It read: Happy two hundred and twenty-third birthday, Scorpion and Frogger!

“Well, that would explain why there are so many candles,” Eric said.

“Two hundred and twenty-three, to be exact,” Brontosaurus said. He patted Eric on the shoulder. Well, patted was probably too gentle a word: more like pounded, with that meaty hand of his.

Eric glanced at Frogger. “Shall we?”

He bent over to blow them out.

“Make a wish!” Crusher said.

I hope we get home without anyone dying.

Eric blew, and between himself and Frogger, they extinguished all two hundred and twenty-three candles.

Dickson cut Eric a piece of cake and placed it onto a paper plate. The cake was white, with white icing on the top, and custard cream layered in the middle. While Dickson gave Frogger the next piece, Eric surveyed the ranks, and was disappointed to see that Marlborough hadn’t shown up.

“Don’t be too disappointed that the Sarge isn’t here,” Dickson said. “He was aware it was your birthday. But you know he doesn’t come to functions like this. He did tell me to wish the two of you a happy birthday.”

“Appreciate you passing that on,” Eric said.

He sat down at one of the tables in the conference room and Frogger sat across from him. The others joined, with Bambi on his left and right.

“This meeting of the Knights of the Round Table is now in session,” Mickey announced.

“Knights of the what?” Slate said.

“Hm, I guess the King Arthur legend went the way of Robin Hood in modern times,” Mickey said.

Slate shook his head. “You bitches and your weird cultural lingo.” He made his voice high-pitched next, to mock them. “Oh King Arthur, where’s my Robin Hood. I need you so bad, because you’re such a big, strong manly man, with those big strong arms, and such wee shoulders, oh King Slate.”

“Somehow he went from King Arthur to King Slate in the same sentence,” Eagleeye said. “And I’m not quite sure how.”

Eric scooped a piece of the cake from his plate into his spoon, and took a bite. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“Only in VR can we celebrate a birthday in the middle of a mission,” Traps said, shaking his head. “You’re right, good cake, though.”

“So what did you wish for?” Dunnigan asked as he licked the icing off his spoon.

Bambi raised a finger. “Oh no, he can’t tell you. That’ll make the wish never come true.”

“She’s right,” Crusher said. “Wishes made on the sacred alter of the birthday cake have to be kept secret.”

Eric had to smile at their conspiratorial behavior.

“You know, this isn’t even the real birthday of Frogger and myself,” Eric told them. “As I’ve always said, the day we woke up in Cicada war machines is a much better marker.”

“You say that every year,” Crusher said.

“I know,” Eric told her. “I did preface the comment with, as I’ve always said.”

“And as I’ve always said,” Hicks chimed in. “The day when our minds first formed on this planet mark our real birthdays. Whether you like it or not.”

Eric sighed, shaking his head. He took another bite

“So you’re another year older,” Traps said, glancing between Frogger and Eric. “How’s it feel?”

“Given that we don’t really age,” Eric said. “It’s only a psychological marker.”

“Yes, your minds are a year older,” Traps said. “How’s it feel?”

Eric considered. “Tiring.”

Slate giggled. “Them two girls are seeping up all your mental energy in bed, aren’t they?”

“No, more like the reverse,” Eric said. “They restore my energy. When they don’t tease me.” He looked at Bambi accusingly.

Bambi shrugged gleefully.

Eric ate another big spoonful. It came from the edge of his piece, so it had a lot of icing, and was cloyingly sweet. “So I thought you had a surprise?” Eric asked Frogger. “Or was this it?”

“No, I have one,” Frogger said.

He reached down into a cooler resting under the table, and produced two beer bottles. One labeled Heineken, the other Guinness.

“I promised you all I’d prepare some beers…” Frogger said.

“Shit man, that seems like ages ago,” Slate said.

Frogger shrugged. “It was shortly after we arrived on this planet.”

“Well give me the Dutch beer, I don’t want no English crap,” Slate said.

“Guinness is Irish,” Crusher said.

Slate waved a dismissive hand. “Same diff.”

Frogger tossed Slate a Heineken can, while Dunnigan took the longer Guinness container.

“I don’t think it’ll taste that good after eating cake,” Brontosaurus said.

Frogger shrugged. “Clear your digital palate in your settings.”

Slate cracked open the top and took a long sip. “Mmm, you got it just right. I can drink this shit all day.” He held it to his lips again and kept drinking until it was empty. Then he crushed the can in his fingers and tossed it aside. “Another!”

Frogger waved a hand, and a twelve-pack appeared in front of Slate.

“Now that’s what I’m talking ‘bout!” Slate said. “You my fav bitch today, Froggy!”

“Notice how his words become more slangy as he gets drunk?” Treads commented.

Dunnigan meanwhile tried his Guinness. “Hmm, it’s close. Something’s not quite right though.”

Frogger frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You’ll get it mate, don’t worry,” Dunnigan said. Eric noticed that Dunnigan was happy to hang onto the drink, however, and kept taking sips. Maybe so that Frogger wouldn’t feel as bad.

Eric accepted a Heineken. He wanted something light. When he finished his cake, he accessed his HUD and reset his VR taste sensors. Then took a sip.

“What do you think?” Frogger asked.

“Not bad,” Eric said. “Tastes like every Heineken I’ve ever had in real life. And that’s a good thing.”

“Thank you.” Frogger seemed relieved.

“I still think it’s a load of bull crock that them chicks of yours are revitalizing you,” Slate said. “Having to constantly please two girls, not just physically, but mentally, has got to be draining.”

“No,” Eric said. “Maybe it was, at first. But after twenty years, you get used to it. And I can’t imagine ever living without them.”

“Well, good for you then, man,” Slate said. “All the more power to ya.”

“Try not to be too jealous or anything,” Traps said.

“Bro, there was not a shred of jealousy in my voice,” Slate said. “I assure your bitch ass. Shit, you’re the one who’s jealous. You don’t even have a girlfriend.”

“At least I’m dating,” Traps said. “I mean, I was, before this mission.”

Slate chuckled at that. “Sure you were. Dude, you weren’t dating jack and shit. And jack called in sick.”

“That reminds me of a line from a movie we once saw…” Frogger said, looking at Eric.

“Army of Darkness?” Eric said.

Frogger nodded. “Uh huh. Looks like some classical slang phrases have passed the test of time, even if Robin Hood and King Arthur failed to make the grade.”

“Make the grade?” Slate said. “Whoa, you guys and your strange slang. Anyway, in regards to what I just said, it was no slang phrase. I made that shit up. Seriously. So don’t try to tell me I got it from no twentieth century crappy movie.”

“It was quite good, actually,” Frogger said. “You should watch it. You’ll like it.”

“Uh, when you watch Beasties Feast On Buggies V, then I’ll think about it,” Slate said. “Now that’s a real classic.”

“The dumbing down of America actually came to pass,” Frogger bemoaned, throwing up his arms.

The rest of the evening passed much like that, with Eric and Frogger reminiscing on past birthdays, and the times the team got in trouble at various clubs they visited on Earth. Androids weren’t allowed in most such clubs, so they had to sneak in most of the time, which usually caused a few problems when they were found out.

In any case, eventually the time for celebrations came to an end, and the Bolt Eaters, who had been avoiding dealing with reality for as long as possible, were at last summoned to return to the real world.

“Sarge is calling,” Dickson said. “It’s time to go. I hope the two of you had a fun birthday.”

Eric smiled sadly. “It was as fun as it could get. Good beer. Good cake. Good friends. No complaints.”

Bambi raised an eyebrow. “What about good sex?”

“That, too,” Eric said. “Well, before you teased me at the end.”

“Hey, we have to keep you coming back for more,” Crusher said. She blew him a kiss, and vanished.

“I’ll keep coming back, don’t you worry,” Eric promised the empty air she left behind.

Bambi gripped his hand one last time. “I really don’t want to go back. Let’s run away together.”

“I wish I could.” Eric was the one who vanished this time.

He logged out of this reality, and returned to the real world.

13

Eric blinked as the real world returned. He raised his robotic arm and squeezed his metal fist with some regret. But maybe not as much as might be expected.

Back inside the killing machine.

It was this form that was keeping him alive in here, not his VR form. And he respected that about his machine body more than anything else.

“Well, the emitters are finished,” Marlborough said.

“Even mine?” Bambi asked.

“Even yours,” Marlborough replied. “Though you started late. Some of the other drones finished their emitters early, and the different Accomps in charge sent the spare units to yours to help with construction. So yes, you’re ready, too.”

Brontosaurus nodded toward what was left of the tanks. Most still had substantial metallic components left, though many were gutted.

“So what should we do with these, or what’s left of them?” Brontosaurus asked.

“We don’t need them anymore,” Marlborough said. “They’ll only draw attention to us, and give away what we really are. But gather as much material as you can fit into your storage compartments for any future repairs.”

Eric and the others ripped away different parts of the wreckages, and shoved the materials into their storage compartments.

“So what’s the range on these masking devices?” Tread asked. “As in: how close can we let the enemy approach before they realize we’re not actually those three-legged Sloth units of theirs?”

“Just to be on the safe side, I’d say don’t let any Banthar units close to more than five hundred meters,” Frogger said.

“But with modern telescopic lenses, couldn’t they get a visual a lot farther than that?” Treads pressed.

“And maybe, just maybe, we should have talked about this before we spent all this time creating the damn things?” Hicks said. “Instead of just blindingly trusting in Frogger.”

“Your trust isn’t misplaced,” Frogger said. “I’ve been recording a lot of data on the Banthar machines, and I’m convinced that most of their units don’t really rely on the visual spectrum, except at very close ranges. In fact, some of them don’t even have cameras. My alien tank certainly didn’t for example: neither I, nor my repair drones, found anything remotely resembling a camera while disassembling the tank for spare parts. There were a few LIDAR emitters, but that was about it. The hulls of our mech automatically scatter LIDAR, so we’re safe on that front.”

“But won’t LIDAR scattering give us away right there?” Brontosaurus asked.

“I don’t think so,” Frogger said. “As far as I can tell, the real Sloths used LIDAR scattering.”

“So keeping our distance from Banthar units might prove easier said than done,” Dickson told him. “When I was in the army during my human days, if ever we spotted friendly units in the distance, we always established an ID before moving on. I don’t see why these aliens wouldn’t do the same. If they detect us, they’ll probably approach in an attempt to confirm we really are friendly.”

“I don’t think so,” Frogger said. “The emitters are the ID you’re speaking of. If I thought otherwise, I would have never designed the devices. Enemy units won’t approach once we’re detected. It’s up to us to keep our distance.”

“I hope you’re right,” Dickson said.

“Trust me,” Frogger said. “I haven’t let down the platoon yet, have I?”

Dickson didn’t answer that.

“So keeping our distance could prove tricky, if we’re planning on approaching the rift site,” Mickey said. “Considering we already agreed there will be more than a few guards.”

“When the time comes, we’ll have to fight our way past to the rift, yes,” Frogger said.

“Assuming it ever opens again...” Mickey said.

“We’ll wait for however long it takes until it does,” Marlborough said.

When all the spare parts they could carry were loaded, Marlborough had the team head north, where there was a break in the mountains. “We’ll follow this range along the shoulders, until we find a path to the south again, and then begin the long walk back to the rift.”

“At least where we think it is,” Mickey said.

“Bitch, I’m tired of your negativity,” Slate said.

“No, let it slide,” Marlborough said. “He’s right, it could be the wrong direction. But we’ll keep trying until we find it.”

“Do you want me to send my scouts forward?” Eagleeye asked.

Marlborough turned toward Eagleeye. “The drones could give away that we’re not really Banthar. Hold them back, for now. We’ll use them sparingly.”

“You got it,” Eagleeye said.

“The rest of you, form a front, like a Banthar search party would use,” Marlborough said. He added preemptively: “And yes, I know, they’re aliens, so we can’t really know what formation they’d actually use. But we can make some educated guesses.”

The group trudged toward the northern defile that led out of the valley. The platoon could have headed south, but obviously Marlborough wanted to avoid encountering the Banthar again, who were very likely sweeping the southern sides of the valley at that very moment. Eric didn’t spot any other airborne craft, but that didn’t mean other patrols weren’t out there.

When they neared the valley entrance, Marlborough had Eagleeye send his two repurposed repair drones forward to act as scouts. They reported that the area was clear, so Eagleeye recalled them and hid them in his storage compartment once more.

In half an hour the team was out of the valley, and heading east along the shoulder of the mountain range. The trees here provided ample coverage for the party—who were just a group of fourteen Sloth units, as far as the enemy was concerned. The trees were as tall as those in the previous forest, but not densely packed enough to completely canopy the sky. They continued the long line, but this time Marlborough made a slight alteration: putting Slate on point fifty meters ahead, and Brontosaurus on drag, fifty meters behind.

An hour later, Brontosaurus reported in: “Got termites coming in from the southern defile. Looks like they’re fanning outward through the trees. What do you want to do, Sarge?”

Marlborough paused. “They would have seen us by now. As soon as you spotted them.”

Eric switched to the POV of Brontosaurus’ rear camera. He could see the black cloud of micro machines spreading through the trees.

“But it looks like they’re still fanning out,” Marlborough continued. “As if they plan to pay no attention to us. That’s a good sign. These emitters must be working...”

“Should we take cover?” Tread asked.

“Too late, now,” Marlborough replied. “They’re already headed our way.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to allow them to get close?” Tread said.

“If we act like we’re afraid at this point, it will only draw their attention,” Marlborough said. “Keep moving. Pretend as if nothing is amiss. We’re just some Banthar scouts, searching for the missing Mind Refurbs. Also, reduce comm range to fifty meters. Broadcast in directional mode only. If the micro machines get closer, shut down comms entirely. We don’t want to ruin our disguises by transmitting on frequencies that are obviously non-Banthar.”

The termites fanned past above the boughs, continuing to approach.

“Shut down comms entirely,” Marlborough ordered.

Eric did so.

The termites moved past overhead, above the treetops, and still paid the Bolt Eaters no attention. In a few moments, they were completely gone.

Eric glanced at Marlborough, who made a circular gesture with one finger above his head, indicating to reactivate comms. Eric did so.

“Well, that was interesting,” Traps said. “You think they reported us to their command and control?”

“Doubt it,” Dickson said. “If they’d figured out what we were, they would have swarmed in an attempt to delay us.”

“So we can let the enemy get close to us without blowing our cover after all,” Hicks said. “Frogger, your emitters are even more effective than you thought.”

“Not necessarily,” Frogger said. “My guess is these termites are easier to fool. Their software receives a friendly signal it recognizes, and instantly ignores the target. There is only so much tech you can miniaturize into something that small.”

“Sure, but together they could form a cloud computing network to share any image recognition loads,” Bambi said. “Negating the need for specialized technology in each unit.”

“Maybe,” Frogger said. “But they didn’t detect us, so we have to assume the termites don’t use their cloud for image recognition. Either way, I still recommend we keep our distance from other units, like I told you before.”

“We’ll do so,” Marlborough said. “Maintain the reduced comm range of fifty meters, directional mode broadcasts only.”

The team continued east along the mountain range, wending through those trees for another hour.

And then Mickey, marching on the far left side of the front formed by the Bolt Eaters, reported in.

“I’m detecting a signal to the north,” Mickey said.

“A signal?” Marlborough asked.

“Hm, scratch that,” Mickey replied. “Multiple signals.”

“What are you saying, man, we got a whole army coming at us?” Dickson said.

“No,” Mickey said. “At least, I don’t think so. These signals are different from anything we’ve detected from the Banthar before. A series of high energy photons, at varying frequencies, overlapping—”

“Wait, what you talking about?” Slate said. “That’s not different. The termites communicate with high energy photons. It’s how we summoned them all to the black hole back on Earth, and destroyed them.”

“Yes, I know,” Mickey said. “But these high energy photons are operating at about half that frequency. And they vary around that baseline, too. They’re almost like the kind of signals you’d expect from communication towers, back on Earth.”

“So you think there might be some sort of comm outpost out there, coming from the north?” Dickson said.

“It’s very possible,” Mickey said. “Or maybe a command and control base.”

“Our mission is to gather Intel on the enemy...” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, I think that mission is pretty much over,” Traps said. “Considering we’re probably not going home at this point.”

“I think we should at least check it out, mates, while we’re here,” Dunnigan said. “We’ve come all this way, after all. And we’ve got FEZ protecting us now.”

“FEZ?” Slate said.

“Frogger’s EmitterZ, with a capital Z on the emitters,” Dunnigan said.

“I’m not certain we want to get too close to a command and control...” Tread said.

“We don’t know for sure what it is,” Frogger said. “I say we at least send a few of us to check it out.”

Marlborough remained quiet for several seconds.

“All right, I’ve made up my mind,” Marlborough said. “We proceed north for a quick side trip. We find out what’s producing those signals, and then we get the hell out of there.”

“Switch to overwatch formation?” Dickson asked.

“No,” Marlborough said. “That’s a formation they know we use for sure by now. If they spot us from afar, I want them to believe we’re Banthar. We maintain the current search pattern for now, and head north.”

And so the team turned north. Slate remained on point, Brontosaurus drag, with the remaining Bolt Eaters forming a line from left to right between them.

“Got something,” Slate said after a few minutes.

Eric had Slate’s viewpoint piped into the upper left of his vision, and he enlarged it to fill his full screen. Beyond the trees, standing in a clearing up ahead, was some sort of metal cylinder.

“Full halt,” Marlborough said.

“That object is giving off a lot of high energy photons,” Mickey said.

“What are you saying?” Brontosaurus asked. “It’s the signal source?”

“No,” Mickey replied. “It’s essentially equivalent to one of our repeaters.”

“So this is a friggin’ alien repeater,” Slate said. “Don’t look like much. We knock this out, we eliminate communications in the region.”

“Doubtful,” Mickey said. “If it’s anything like Earth’s telecommunications infrastructure, there will be hundreds of backup nodes nearby. All you’ll do is call in the equivalent of the telecom repair team.”

Dickson turned toward Marlborough. “What do you want to do, Sarge?”

“Are you detecting more signals to the north?” Marlborough asked Mickey.

“I am,” Mickey said. “I believe the signal source is located somewhere within the next ten kilometers.”

“Could be just another repeater further north,” Frogger said.

“No,” Mickey said. “The signals are stronger here, with more diversity. We’re getting close to whatever is producing them.”

The party continued northward, and after eight kilometers, the trees began to thin out. In the distance, in a valley before them, Eric saw what looked like more trees, lining the horizon from east to west. He zoomed in, and realized they weren’t trees, but metal cylinders protruding from the ground. Buildings of some kind.

“This isn’t an outpost, but a whole frickin’ alien city!” Slate said.

Between the buildings, Eric spotted aliens that could best be described as human-sized snails, except with six slimy antennae on their heads, and two spiraling shells on their backs. Each of the entities rested on disks that floated a meter above the ground. On some of the buildings, Eric spotted balconies, where other snails were lounging in the sun, also on hovering disks.

“We’ve finally spotted our first Banthars in the flesh,” Traps said.

“Anyone up for some escargot?” Bambi asked.

“Mm hm,” Slate said. “I definitely want to see these bitches fry for what they did to our planet.”

“Looks like the population live their lives on hover boards,” Mickey commented.

“Those disks are strange, aren’t they…” Tread added.

Overhead, different sized airships patrolled the sky, all of the same basic design.

“Enough patrol ships for ya?” Brontosaurus asked.

Eric surveyed the city for quite some time, pausing to absorb everything he was seeing. He noticed that there were Sloth units standing watch at some of the intersections, and also some on patrol, always in groups of four. They were either there to protect the population, or to keep them in check. Maybe a little of both.

Eric zoomed out so that he was looking at the skyline of the alien city from a distance once more.

“Well, looks like we found our signal source,” Marlborough finally said.

14

Eric surveyed the cleared land in front of the row of buildings in the distance. For about two kilometers in front of it, there were fenced estates containing undergrowth that was far more lush than any he’d seen in the forest so far. Large, two-armed machines hovered above the different estates, tending to the prickly foliage.

“Growing crops,” Hicks commented.

“Well just lookee here at this shit,” Slate said. “Lookee here. This is an opportunity.”

“What do you mean?” Mickey said. “For more recon?”

“Hell no,” Slate said. “We gots ourselves a nuclear bomb, carried by Bambi. You get what I’m saying?”

“He’s right,” Eagleeye said. “We’ve come all this way, we’re in the heart of enemy territory. We might not get a chance like this again. We have stealth tech that hides us from their sensors. And we have a nuke.”

“Yes, but that nuke was meant for defensive purposes only,” Dickson said. “We have no authorization to destroy military targets, let alone civilian targets.”

“Don’t we?” Slate said. “Our mission was recon, yes. And you say the nuke is for defensive purposes only? Well, this is for defense. We need some sort of distraction, to pave our getaway to the south. We nuke this place, we’ll draw in all support troops from around the continent.”

“Or we make them angrier, causing them to search for us all the harder,” Hicks said.

“Look how big it is, this has to be the main city of the colony,” Brontosaurus said. “We destroy this, we disable the entire colony.”

“There you go,” Eagleeye said. “And if anything, we have to bomb this place to pay the Banthar back for what they did to Earth. This is our chance.”

“Just because it’s big, doesn’t mean it’s the main city,” Mickey said. “There could be an even bigger one somewhere out here. But still, you’re right, we’ll cause some damage, I admit.”

“I tend to agree with Slate and Eagleeye,” Marlborough said. “I want these alien a-holes to pay for what they’ve done to our planet. But I won’t speak for all of you. We’ll take a vote.”

“A vote?” Traps said. “That’s new. Don’t think I’ve ever had a chance to vote on any order in the army before.”

“That’s because this order might go against some of your consciences,” Marlborough said. “There could be anywhere from a million aliens to a hundred million in that city. Or it could be empty. Or fully automated. We just don’t know. But destroying it will certainly inflict damage, and cause the aliens to sit up and take notice that we’re not a species to be trifled with. And you know what else, we won’t even have to go inside the city to plant the bomb. Because of the warhead yield, if we place it somewhere along the outskirts, it’ll still vaporize anything inside a five kilometer radius, and the resultant firestorm will burn everything else within a hundred klicks to a cinder.”

“What if the city is shielded in some way, like their airships?” Eric asked. “And the nuclear blast can’t penetrate?”

“I’m not seeing any indication it is,” Marlborough replied.

“What about wormholes?” Traps said.

“Wormholes?” Frogger asked.

“Yeah, wormholes,” Traps answered. “I remember when we tried to blow up their mothership with nukes launched from Earth, the Banthar had wormhole generators lining the entire outer perimeter of their hull. Just because we haven’t seen anything like that here, doesn’t mean they don’t have them hidden somewhere.”

“True,” Marlborough said. “But I think in this case, it’s likely their defenses align with the local perceived threats. Their mothership was designed for conquering, and had all the defenses one would expect of such a massive, powerful weapon of war. But here, on the other hand... I’m not convinced the Banthar will be expecting a nuclear attack. They’ll probably have some defense turrets, sure, maybe a few bioweapons and mechs, but that’s it. We’ll never face any of those—because we won’t be getting too close.”

“We’ll have to get ourselves at least a hundred kilometers away before we detonate the bomb,” Frogger said. “Our mechs are rated to withstand heat, but not that kind of heat.”

“We’ll have to set a long timer, yes,” Marlborough agreed. “So, all in favor of planting the nuke, raise your right hand.”

Everyone raised a hand except Dickson.

“Killing them won’t bring back our dead,” Dickson said.

“No, but it’ll feel good,” Slate said.

“Do you all seriously want to do this, when we have a chance to go home?” Dickson said.

“There’s no guarantee that we’ll get home,” Eagleeye said. “But at least we can try to kill a few Banthar before we go down.”

Dickson’s avatar shook his head. “I’ll help, of course. Even though I disagree.”

“Good,” Marlborough said.

“So what’s the plan?” Mickey asked.

Marlborough glanced at Frogger. “You’re still worried we can be detected on the visual band?”

“At close range, or zoom magnification, yes,” Frogger said.

“Then we’ll wait until nightfall to approach the city,” Marlborough said. “Under the cover of darkness, we place the bomb somewhere near the outskirts, hopefully in one of the outlying farms, and then retreat. We set a timer with a conservative number, say ten hours, which means we have to maintain a minimum travel speed of ten klicks an hour, which is readily sustainable. And then, when we’re a hundred kilometers away to the south, the bomb detonates behind us, wiping out the Banthar colony.”

“Why bother to approach at all?” Slate said. “Why not just plant the bomb here, and let the firestorm do its work when we’re gone? You did say the firestorm would have a radius of a hundred klicks, after all...”

“Because I want to cause the most damage possible,” Marlborough said. “And vaporize as many of those buildings as we can in the initial strike. Just in case the structures are able to withstand the heat of the firestorm. If those buildings are made of the same material as our shields, for example, there’s a good chance they’ll still be standing.”

“Fair enough,” Slate said. “We plant the bomb on the outskirts, and then go home.”

“You got it,” Marlborough said.

“You always make these sorts of operations sound so simple, Sarge,” Crusher said.

“I know,” Marlborough said. “But they rarely are, are they?”

“Especially not this time,” Crusher said. “Considering that without sunlight, we won’t be able to recharge if anything goes wrong…”

* * *

The platoon retreated into the forest, and waited until the thirty-six hour day became night.

When it was fully dark, Bambi commented: “Well, at least it’s not snowing tonight.”

“Who’s to say it won’t snow yet?” Mickey asked.

“That’s true, there’s no guarantee,” Bambi said. “The temperature has still dropped below the freezing point of the alkane composite prevalent here, after all.”

“You know, if we fuck this up, we have to wait fifty-two hours until morning, right?” Traps said.

“Which is why we’re not going to fuck it up,” Dickson said.

“We could wait forty-five hours, so we have a shorter time period before recharge...” Brontosaurus suggested.

“No,” Marlborough said. “If the shit hits the fan in there, it won’t matter whether we have only two hours to recharge, or fifty, the daylight won’t help us. We proceed now. Let’s get this done.”

Slate took point once more, and led the way forward. Eric followed fifty meters behind, and Tread fifty meters after him. The remaining members of the Bolt Eaters maintained that fifty-meter separation as they in turn left cover, and began the trek toward the alien city. The platoon was using a more spread-out formation for stealth reasons. They would still appear as Sloth units to any Banthar that detected them, and hopefully the potentially strange formation wouldn’t attract any adverse attention.

Eric gazed at Slate ahead of him. Slate’s unit definitely looked alien in nature, and was only recognizable as a mech because of the blue outline his comm node specifically generated on Eric’s HUD. This was due to the fact that in addition to transmitting the necessary IDs the Banthar might expect from Sloth units, the 3D-printed exoskeletons also generated thermal emissions approximating the heat signatures of the aforementioned robots.

Eric was running in stealth mode, meaning his servomotor power output was dialed way down, and he moved slowly, generating as little noise as possible. Also, he carefully planted his feet, so as to reduce the clanking thuds produced by each footfall. The platoon had kept their transmission range limited to fifty meters, with their antennae set to directional mode and pointing solely along the scattered line formed by the mechs: as Marlborough had said before, while they might have thermal signatures that were the spitting images of Sloth units, if there was one thing that would give them away, it would be generating comm signals that were non-Banthar in origin. The Bolt Eaters had programmed their transmitters to auto shutdown if any tangos approached within fifty meters.

The trees thinned out, until they fell away entirely. Ahead awaited the outlying farms, and the city beyond. He zoomed in on the city—the streets were deserted at this hour. However, he could see the thermal signatures of airships as the craft continued to rove the night sky above the alien metropolis, but there were otherwise no running lights to mark them. And though the alien buildings below emitted no light on the visible spectrum, the team was able to use thermal vision because of the heat energy generated by the structures both in the city itself, and the hydroponics farms adjacent to it.

Speaking of those farms, as Eric made his way quietly between the estates, he spotted alien robots still working the fields, despite the hour, the machines fully visible on the infrared band thanks to their thermal emissions. They looked like floating torsos without legs or heads.

“Kind of like the Headless Horseman, but without the horse,” Frogger commented.

“Hm, I don’t really see it,” Mickey said.

“If you bitches don’t stop with the ancient cultural nonsense,” Slate said. “I’m gonna kick your ugly asses so hard your hulls melt!”

“Hear that?” Traps said. “Better watch out, Slate’s going to melt down your hulls with a single kick if you don’t behave. Powerful stuff! Powerful, powerful.”

“I’m gonna kick yours, too, at this rate,” Slate said.

“I had a prof back when there were still physical universities who used the word ‘powerful’ almost every lecture when he was describing one particular scientific formula or other,” Traps said. “Some enterprising students recorded a few of his lectures, and one of the clips went viral, becoming an Internet meme. Powerful, powerful.”

“Still gonna kick your ass,” Slate said.

“Let’s get some quiet on the comms,” Marlborough said. “The less comm chatter we emit at the moment, the better as far as I’m concerned.”

The Bolt Eaters made their way forward in silence. There were aisles between the estates—Eric hesitated to call them roads, because they weren’t paved in any way, and he suspected any traffic flow was airborne. The aisles were probably there in case emergency landings were needed. Then again, maybe the robotic farmers transported their crops to the city on the backs of alien pack animals, or maybe mech equivalents.

A couple of times the machines beyond the fences seemed to pause, as if watching Eric and the others go by. But they usually resumed their work after a few seconds, seemingly satisfied that the passers-by were Banthar units.

In short order the team reached the last farm situated on the outskirts of the silos.

“So did we ever decide, do we place the nuke here in the aisle, or inside the farm?” Slate said.

“Has to be in the farm,” Eagleeye said. “If we leave it in this aisle for ten hours, it’s possible it might be discovered.”

“But if we put it in the farm, it might also be discovered,” Traps said.

“I could put it on the roof of one of the outbuildings,” Bambi said. “I do have jumpjets. Not sure it will help hide it, though, given how many aircraft the Banthar have patrolling the skies.”

“How about there.” Frogger highlighted an area of the HUD, near the corner of the estate, where three cylindrical buildings were placed in a close, triangular pattern. “Between those buildings. It looks like it would fit, and it’ll be well hidden by the surrounding buildings. It wouldn’t be visible from the ground, or the air.”

“Bambi, what kind of signature will the nuke give off once it’s armed?” Marlborough asked.

“None,” Bambi said. “It will emit an obviously nuclear signature when the internal systems activate ten seconds before detonation, but until then, nothing.”

“Good,” Marlborough said. “Use your jumpjets, and place it between the three buildings Frogger suggested.”

“Will do,” Bambi said.

“I’m transmitting the secondary codes you’ll need to arm the warhead, Bambi...” Marlborough said. Then, a moment later: “The rest of you, hold your separate positions, but keep weapons trained inside the estate. Let’s try not to trigger any alarms the estate has rigged.”

Bambi arced into the air, flying over the estate, and landing gently on top of one of the three silos located on the far side of the hydroponics farm. Eric expected a klaxon to sound, but the farm remained quiet.

Bambi descended the silo, using the magnetic mounts in her feet to keep her attached to the surface. Luckily, the silo was magnetic, otherwise she would have had to create her own footholds by crunching the metal and her descent would have been far noisier. As it was, Eric still cringed whenever she attached each foot, because he could hear a soft, audible clang even from where he stood outside the estate. She moved slow enough, and randomly enough, that it hopefully wouldn’t draw attention. The robotic workers on the farm continued their tasks without pause.

She reached the ground between the three silos, and separated her carapace from the rest of her body, leaving her only two pincers for arms, and two segmented legs. Even without the exoskeleton portion wrapped around the carapace, the remaining segments were able to generate the necessary thermal signatures to compensate: Frogger had specifically designed Bambi’s version to function without that detachable piece, so she still gave off a Sloth thermal signature.

Bambi remained next to the carapace for several moments, obviously arming the warhead contained inside using the secondary codes Marlborough gave her along with her own codes, and then she clambered up to the tail to remove two of the spears that composed the tri-pronged barb. She inserted them into the slots in her right fore claw that were designed exclusively for that purpose, and then leaped onto the closest silo and began climbing via her magnetic mounts. She pulled herself to the top and then maneuvered next to the edge. Then she vaulted off, jumping over the fence that enclosed the estate, and landing in the aisle between it and the next estate with a loud thud.

A couple of the robot workers in the camp turned toward her position, but she remained motionless—just a Sloth out on a nighttime patrol run.

The workers soon returned to tending their crops.

Bambi took a side aisle back to the main platoon. “It’s armed. I set it to detonate ten hours from now.”

“All right Bolt Eaters, we’re done here,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to get the hell out.”

15

Eric and the others retreated at a speed of five kilometers an hour until they reached the forest, and then upped their pace to fifteen kph. They continued in their zig-zag single file formation, though the separation was down to twenty meters per mech.

The city was well behind them, and Eric was feeling good about their chances of making it beyond the radius of the firestorm in time, especially if they kept up their present speed. Whether or not they’d actually get home or not, he wasn’t entirely sure, but he wasn’t about to lower morale by voicing his doubts.

Overhead, the boughs of the tall trees occasionally intruded on the stars, a testament to the well-spaced trunks. While refraining from the use of LIDAR or headlamps, the platoon maintained thermal and night vision so that the boles and terrain around them appeared as varying gradients of green.

“You know, did I ever mention what a relief it is not to have to drag those damn alien wreckages around?” Slate asked.

“You did,” Mickey replied. “A few times.”

“Actually he didn’t,” Eagleeye said.

“I know, but now we’re going to have to listen to a sermon about him complaining about how heavy the tanks were,” Mickey said. “And how he never wants to drag an alien tank ever again. His sermon will include some name calling involving the word bitch, a few F bombs, maybe some fecal references, and then finally he’ll shut up.”

“Bitch, you know what?” Slate said. “I’m done talking to you guys.”

There was silence on the comm for several moments.

“I think you made him mad,” Eagleeye said.

“Hey, I just tell it like it is,” Mickey said.

“Well, that’s real high and mighty of you, Mickey Mouse!” Slate said. “Or should I say, Mighty Mouse! That’s right, bitch! I’ve been honing my twentieth century cultural references, all the better to mock your sorry excuse for a Bolt Eater!”

“Calling me Mickey Mouse isn’t an insult,” Mickey said. “In fact, I kind of like it.”

“As you wish,” Slate said. “Mickey Mighty Mouse.”

“Now that’s just wrong,” Frogger said.

“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” Eric said.

“Huh?” Slate asked.

“Nothing,” Eric said. “Just a proverb that popped to mind when you said Mighty Mouse.”

“Man, you twenty-first century people and your slang and proverbs and dildonics,” Slate said.

“What do dildonics have to do with the twenty-first century?” Tread asked.

“Dunno,” Slate said. “But it sounded good. Actually no, I do know. That’s when dildonics were first invented. And we’ve been fine tuning them to the state they are today. When you’re lonely and need a little bit of loving, you can’t go wrong with remote dildonics.”

“When the conversation drifts to the subject of dildonics, you know it’s time to change topics,” Crusher said. “On that note… so Bambi, how’s it feel to have two legs again?”

“Weird as hell,” Bambi said. “I’m still getting used to it. I’ve been experimenting with switching out my walking subroutines, but it hasn’t helped.”

“You’ll adapt,” Brontosaurus said. “We always do.”

“It’s certainly what we do best,” Dickson said. “Adapting to changing situations, worsening battle spaces. It’s why we were picked to be Mind Refurbs. It’s why we’ve survived this long on an alien colony.”

“Okay, staff sergeant,” Slate said. “Let’s not be jinxing our situation now, kay?”

“Uh, better watch yourself, Slate,” Brontosaurus said. “Talking back to the staff sergeant isn’t the best idea.”

“What?” Slate said. “Me and Dickson are good friends. He knows I was very polite in how I went about phrasing the situation.”

“You were indeed,” Dickson said. “And you do have a point. It’s best not to dwell upon our situation for very long. We have to concentrate on putting as much distance as possible between ourselves and that bomb. When that firestorm erupts, things aren’t going to get very pretty.”

The trees around them had suddenly grown very dense, Eric noted, so much so that he could no longer see the stars above.

“Is it just me, or did the forest suddenly get very thick all of a sudden,” Dunnigan said.

“It’s not you,” Hicks said.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Slate said in a high-pitched voice. “Our relationship just isn’t working for me anymore, my lover Dunnigan. I’m not a one man, man.”

“Is that supposed to be my voice?” Hicks said.

“You got it, bitch,” Slate said. “Because it’s certainly not mine! I ain’t sleeping with Dunnigan.”

Hicks chortled. “Neither am I. No one is.”

“Aw, poor Dunnigan,” Slate said.

“Why is he so antsy all of a sudden?” Dunnigan said. “Settle down, Slate. Stop attacking us other blokes, kay?”

“I didn’t attack you,” Slate said. “I complimented you. You should feel happy that your ass is so well-desired.”

“We’re all antsy,” Frogger said. “So it’s not surprising that Slate is, too. We just planted a nuclear bomb. We’re trying to escape the radius of the coming firestorm. Of course we’re all going to be antsy.”

Before anyone else could respond, shapes moved within the tree line.

“The hell was—” Slate began.

Something hard slammed into Eric’s chest assembly, and he was thrown backward against one of the trees. The bark seemed to spread apart behind him so that in moments he was engulfed, and trapped inside a tomb made of wood. He couldn’t move, and when he fired his weapons, they produced no discernible damage.

Marlborough’s voice came over the comm. “Bolt… trapped… get out…” Those words that got through distorted badly.

Eric glanced at his overhead map. It updated intermittently, judging from the occasional flash of the different indicators. As far as he could tell, the team members were embedded inside nearby trees, like himself.

“Sarge, do you read?” Eric said. “I’m trapped inside one of the tree trunks. Can’t move.”

No answer.

“Internal accelerometers are detecting downward motion,” Dee announced.

His hull creaked as the pressure increased, and then he slipped through an opening, landing in what looked like a cold, damp grotto. He could move freely again. The first thing he did was activate his headlamps.

He was indeed inside some kind of cave. The walls were made of a slimy material, and glistened when his headlamps passed over them. His feet were ankle deep in liquid.

“The liquid is slightly corrosive,” Dee said. “If you remain in it for more than an hour, your foot armor will begin to degrade.”

Overhead, organic-like tubes opened up, squeezing out the other Bolt Eaters one by one. The mechs landed splashing into the liquid beside Eric.

“We’ve just been shat out of the sphincter of the Forest Queen,” Slate said. “Gotta love it.”

“Actually, we haven’t been shat out yet,” Bambi said. “I think this is a stomach. We’re standing in mildly corrosive acid, and the walls are sheathed in the same material.”

“What are you saying?” Marlborough said. “The ‘trees’ on the surface were part of a bigger organism? And we’ve just been swallowed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Bambi said.

“Then it’s time to give this fucker indigestion.” Marlborough deployed his Wolverine blades. “Rip and tear, Bolt Eaters!”

Eric walked up to the wall and sliced his alien blades through the surface. He cut two parallel gashes, but otherwise got no response from whatever creature was harboring them. So he kept slicing, again and again, opening up a small cavity in the tissue. He paused occasionally to rip the loose skin away, so he could dig deeper. But always there was more flesh within.

Around him, the other Bolt Eaters similarly tore into the organic walls.

“Switch to main weapons!” Marlborough pointed all of his remaining weapons at the wall.

Eric fired his main weapons into the gap he’d torn, and while he and the others were able to cause significant blast damage, digging deep into the tissue, they never got through to the other side, even after combining their fire to target the same area. Nor did the creature react in any way.

“Cease firing,” Marlborough said after a time. “We’re only draining our batteries.”

Slate walked up to the big gap their combined fire had formed in one of the walls, and he stepped inside. There was a loud suction sound, and he vanished. Eric heard the soft susurrations of alien metal passing through tissue, multiple times. And then it ceased. Slate emerged a moment later, covered in red goo, his blades dripping blood.

“Well that only ends in more muscle tissue,” Slate said. “Whatever the hell swallowed us, it’s big.”

“Maybe we should concentrate our fire on the openings that brought us here,” Eric said.

He and the team fired at the ring of muscular tissue just above, and it spiraled open upon impact, as if by reflex. The floor rose, too, smashing them into the ceiling. Multiple rings opened and Eric was pushed into one of them. Darkness enveloped him, even though his headlamp was still active. Once more he couldn’t move, as the hard tissue of an esophagus pressed into him from all sides.

He abruptly slid through an opening and landed on a floor that was, judging from the undergrowth, the ground. He was covered in acid and slime.

He forced himself upright and cast about with his headlamp. The “trees” around him vomited up the others, and when everyone emerged, the tubelike shapes receded into the ground. None of those tubes had boughs, and instead ended in sharp, bristly tips. They vanished one by one, leaving empty holes.

The others had their headlamps active as well, and glanced about in confusion at the vanished tubes. Crusher went up to one of the pits left in the ground and gazed into the hole.

“I only see dirt down there,” Crusher said. “I guess it’s gone.”

“Well, that did it then,” Traps said. “Good job, Scorp. You freed us from the creature.”

“Yay me,” Eric said.

“See, that’s the problem with hanging around two girls all the time,” Slate said. “You start to talk like them. Yay me. Sheesh.”

“You mean two bodacious babes,” Mickey said. “Not girls.”

“Don’t get me started…” Slate said.

The forest began to shake around them.

“Oh no…” Hicks said.

The ground began to crack underneath them, and the team made a hasty retreat through the forest. The trees were well-spaced here, meaning that no hidden giants were waiting to spring a similar trap.

Eric glanced in his rear view video feed, and watched something emerge from the forest floor, something big: its back bristled with the tube-like shapes the platoon had originally confused with trees. It was a quadruped of some kind, about the size of a football stadium.

“That’s either a really big porcupine, or a giant armadillo with quills,” Dunnigan said while on the run like the others.

“Out of the radiation chamber and into the plasma conduction channel,” Crusher said.

“In my day, we used to say ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire,’” Mickey commented.

“Fuck your day,” Slate told him.

A crack formed in the side of that creature, revealing a series of razor sharp teeth.

“Looks like it has two ingestion mechanisms,” Crusher said.

The mouth opened further, and the giant beast unleashed a stomach curdling roar.

“Why do I sometimes feel like I’m trapped in Jurassic Park?” Frogger commented.

“Weapons pointed behind while on the run!” Marlborough said. “Open fire!”

Eric directed both arms behind his back, switched to auto-targeting mode, marked the giant creature as his main target, and engaged. The muzzles of his laser, plasma, and energy weapons rotated to fire at the creature.

It launched quilled barbs in return. They appeared as spears in the night, and Eric dodged to the side; one of the spears penetrated the ground beside him, embedding deep.

“I don’t think we want to get hit with these…” Brontosaurus commented.

“No,” Eric agreed.

“We’re not doing any damage!” Tread said. “At least, nothing significant!”

“Sync your weapons with mine!” Marlborough said. “I’m going to target its mouth!”

Eric sync’d his armaments to Marlborough’s as requested, and a moment later the platoon opened fire; every single weapon struck the alien mouth. One of the teeth melted away, and the inner palate must have been hit, but the creature still kept coming.

“I’m hit!” Bambi announced.

16

Eric immediately turned back. “Got her!”

Crusher beat him to her.

Bambi was pinned to the ground.

“One of the spears lodged between her exoskeleton and her armor,” Crusher said. “Looks like the armor deflected the path of the blade, so it caused only glancing damage. I can’t pull the spear free, though… it’s lodged fairly tight.”

The portion of the spear that jutted from underneath Bambi was inaccessible, preventing Eric from cutting through it with his alien blades. So instead he wrapped his hands around the protruding top portion and tugged at the same time as Crusher; this while the big creature continued to rapidly bear down on the trio.

The long shaft refused to budge.

“Going to have to cut away your exoskeleton to get you out!” Eric told Bambi.

“No!” Bambi said. “Without it I can’t—”

Eric slammed his alien blades through the exoskeleton, and ripped away the spear. “Sorry. I had no choice.”

He helped her to her feet, and the three of them ran forward; because her exoskeleton was damaged, thanks to him, Bambi no longer gave off the thermal signature of a Sloth.

“Headlamps off!” Marlborough said. “This fucker might be able to track visual spectrum emissions! Not to mention the light will attract the attention of any Banthar patrols passing by overhead!”

Headlamps deactivated across the platoon, until they were running through the pitch-black forest once more, relying solely on night vision and thermals.

But the big creature had gotten too close, and that huge head swung, striking Eric, Bambi and Crusher at the same time, though they fired at point blank range; they were batted aside like so much crumpled paper.

Eric struck a tree, while Bambi and Crusher tumbled past it on either side. He glanced at his power levels. Sixty percent. Decent, but not the greatest, considering he had another fifty hours to go before he could recharge again.

“My emitters are down, too,” Crusher said. “That blow shattered a quarter of my exoskeleton.”

Eric checked his own, but it had remained intact. Lucky.

The creature had continued past them on its rampage, apparently having forgotten the three, and instead pursued the remaining Bolt Eaters who continued to flee up ahead.

“We have to help them somehow!” Eric said, clambering to his feet to pursue. He leaped over the fallen trees the creature left in its path, and accelerated until he was following behind it by about three hundred meters. Bambi and Crusher joined him momentarily: they were moving at their top speed, but still couldn’t catch it.

He momentarily increased his comm range, sending out a burst so that he could connect with the other units; he saw that a small group of them were still running directly ahead of the beast, while the remainder had fanned out in multiple directions. Because the Bolt Eaters had the same speed limitations as Eric, those in front of the beast were unable to lose it.

Eric restored his comm range to the lowest setting, and continued his pursuit. He and the girls launched a couple of energy bolts, but it seemed to do nothing, even when they combined shots.

That said, still the creature occasionally slowed down: no doubt when the Bolt Eaters in front fired concentrated bursts, perhaps into the mouth. This allowed Eric and the girls to close to within fifty meters.

“If only I still had my jumpjets, I could get on top of the thing,” Bambi said.

The creature slowed again, and Eric sped toward it once more. “Maybe you don’t need jumpjets!”

As he neared the beast, he switched to Bullet Time and leaped; he slammed his Wolverine-style blades into the hind leg. The alien spears sunk deep, and he remained fixed in place as the leg continued to move up and down like some piston from hell.

Bambi appeared beside him on the same leg, and Crusher on the other side.

He deactivated Bullet Time to conserve power, and then grabbed onto Bambi with his free hand, slid his blades free, and then pulled himself higher using her mech for purchase. He leaped again, stabbed the weapons into the skin above her, and lodged himself higher against the beast’s leg. Bambi grabbed his ankle and pulled herself above him; she vaulted higher and similarly secured herself with her spears. Crusher climbed both him and Bambi and did the same.

In that manner, the three of them were able to scale the leg, slowly leap-frogging one another. When Eric reached the top, he carefully picked his way past the ring of giant, spear-like quills that lined the outside of the creature’s back, and then lent a hand to Bambi and Crusher after him. It was tricky to maintain his balance, as the surface bobbed and tilted with each stride.

“So what now?” Crusher asked.

Eric turned toward the forefront. “Let’s see how well this creature takes to head attacks.”

They hurried to the front. He momentarily increased the range of his comm node to confirm that some of the Bolt Eaters were still trapped ahead of the beast. The group put some distance on the creature—they had slowed it down enough for Eric and the girls to board, after all.

Eric returned his comm node to minimal power, and then began plunging his blade repeatedly into the neck region. Crusher did the same beside him. He kept digging until he had carved himself quite the hole in the tissue.

Abruptly the creature roared, and began rearing, as if trying to knock the three interlopers off its back. Eric stabbed his spear in deep and held on.

He increased his comm node range and saw that the Bolt Eaters had pulled far ahead. He’d succeeded in stopping the creature, for the moment.

Unfortunately, he also saw a pair of red dots. Incoming fast.

“Airships!” Eric said. “Down! Comms off!”

Eric pulled his blade free and allowed the creature’s bucking to send him flying away. He disabled his comm node entirely and landed next to a tree. He immediately took cover.

He had no idea where Bambi and Crusher hit the ground.

The stars blotted out overhead as the airships filled the sky. He heard what sounded like harpoons launching, and the huge creature howled. It tilted its body and launched several quills skyward; the energy shields of the airships kicked in, causing sparks to light up the night sky where the blows were deflected. He heard more harpoon sounds, and then the creature collapsed, howling no more.

Then it floated upward, spread between the two airships, suspended on cables. A fresh kill to feed the Banthar snails in the city.

As the two craft pulled away, he realized the tractor beam was active beneath one of them. It carried two shapes. Mechs?

He zoomed in.

The tractor beam carried Bambi and Crusher.

Eric realized that without their emitters, they had no way of hiding from the airship, even with their comm nodes disabled.

He had the sudden urge to run at them, but he knew that wasn’t the best idea.

He did it anyway.

He reached his top speed, but it was too late. The airships were retreating, fast.

He considered activating his comm node at maximum range to broadcast his position, but that would only put the other Bolt Eaters in danger—when the Banthar realized he was emitting human protocols, that would put all Sloth units in the vicinity under suspicion.

I could rip off the emitters instead...

But by then he couldn’t even see the airships. Probably a good thing, because allowing himself to get captured was an emotional reaction, not logical. No good could come from it. He could rescue them better from the outside.

Too bad he had no idea where the airships were headed.

Time to remedy that.

He ran toward the closest tree and retracted his blades to clamber upward; he made handholds and footholds as he went. He reached the boughs, and ejected in his Cicada, and climbed past them until he could peer past the distant treetops. The city was still in view to the north, barely. When he zoomed in, he could see the buildings clearly. He switched his targeting crosshairs over the airships, and watched as they deposited the carcass of the huge creature into a processing center in one of the farms. Then the airships separated to go their own ways. Eric kept targeting the one that had captured Bambi and Crusher, and watched it pass over the outskirts of the city, and approach a large silo several blocks inside. It paused on top, and he saw two small dots descend, courtesy of the tractor beam—he was unable to zoom in any further, but he was sure they were Bambi and Crusher.

The dots reached the building, and he could no longer discern the girls from the background thermal radiation.

He marked the building on his HUD, then returned to his mech and clambered back down.

The other Bolt Eaters were waiting for him.

“We saw what happened to Bambi and Crusher,” Marlborough said.

“We have to go back for them,” Eric said. “I know where they are.”

“There’s no time,” Dickson said. “The clock’s ticking. We have a nuclear bomb going off in nine and a half hours.”

“I don’t care,” Eric said. “You can all stay behind. I’m going. It was my...” His voice cracked, and he had to momentarily suppress his emotional subroutines because he wouldn’t have been able to finish, otherwise. “It was my plan that caused them to get captured. I knew their emitters were damaged. I should have told them to get down off that creature’s back a lot sooner. But I didn’t.”

“You couldn’t have known Banthar airships would be coming,” Brontosaurus said.

“No,” Eric said. “But I knew the noise that creature was making would draw them, eventually.” He glanced at his battery power. “I’m down to fifty percent. But that should be all I need.”

“Wait,” Dickson said. “You forget what we are. We can just restore the two of them from backups.”

“No,” Eric said. “Unacceptable. I won’t lose them both like this, not again. Would you want to be restored from your backups? Knowing that this version of you would die, and never again see the light of day?”

Dickson didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” Eric continued. “While there’s still a chance to save them, I have to go.”

“I’ll go with you,” Brontosaurus said.

“Me, too,” Eagleeye said.

“Shit, I’m not going to let you three have all the fun.” Slate stepped forward.

“Before everyone else volunteers, I want to mention something,” Marlborough said. “The fewer units that participate in this rescue mission, the better their chances. You’ll recall that when we spotted Sloth units patrolling the city grounds earlier, it was always in groups of four.”

“We can send multiple groups of four then, to approach the target from different angles,” Tread said. “There’s twelve of us, so that makes three groups.”

“But three groups also increases the chance of discovery,” Dickson said. “The Sarge is right, if we really want to allow this, one group is best.”

“You know, it’s kind of convenient that our emitters just so happen to emulate Sloths,” Tread said. “You must have quite the foresight, there, Frogger.”

“Not foresight, but luck,” Frogger said. “Or then again, maybe it’s because the Sloth units are the predominate guard robots the Banthar use on this particular colony.”

“Well, whatever the case,” Tread continued. “What happens when Scorp and the other four rescue Bambi and Crusher... they’ll become a group of six. You’re telling me that won’t draw attention?”

“We’ll have to use some form of bounding overwatch,” Eric said.

“Except their masking emitters don’t work anymore,” Frogger said. “So they won’t register as Sloth units. It won’t matter if you maintain a diamond formation.”

“Maybe we can pretend they’re our captives,” Eric said. “Either way, we’ll figure it out when the time comes.”

“Famous last words,” Mickey said.

“Thanks for that,” Eric said.

“We’ll join you up to the outskirts, and wait for you,” Marlborough said. “Three hours is all we can afford. If you aren’t back by then, you’re on your own, because we’ll have to retreat at close to our maximum speed to escape the detonation by then.”

“Can we disarm the nuke?” Traps asked.

“Not without Bambi’s primary codes,” Marlborough answered.

“So we could still give Scorp’s team a few hours extra,” Traps said. “Because if they’re late, you can just disarm the bomb with Bambi’s codes when they return.”

“Yes, but I’m not going to take the risk,” Marlborough said. “If I wait here five hours, for example, and the team doesn’t return, we’re all dead. And you’re assuming Scorpion will successfully retrieve her. For all we know, Bambi could already be dismantled. So, three hours.”

“Three hours,” Eric agreed.

17

Eric, Slate, Brontosaurus, and Eagleeye approached the outskirts of the city. There was no wall or other barricading structure, but no doubt sensors of some kind lined the perimeter. Mindful of that, Eric and the other three marched in the same diamond formation they had seen Sloth patrols using in the city earlier.

The rest of the Bolt Eaters remained behind on the outskirts, watching from the closest estate, and out of comm range.

As the four-mech team neared the buildings, a small alien sphere appeared on the thermal band and came forward—one of the alien scouts the platoon had encountered in the forest before. Seeing it confirmed Eric’s suspicions about sensors embedded near, or within, the buildings. Some kind of city AI was keeping tabs on them.

Up until that point, they had kept their comms dialed down to a five-meter range. But they had all agreed that if any units approached, they would disable comms entirely. Eric did just that.

The sphere reached him, and hovered a short distance above and in front of his head. He continued walking toward the buildings, unsure what the standard protocol was.

Then the sphere moved away.

He restored his comm node to the five-meter distance.

“Now we see if it calls in the cavalry,” Eagleeye commented.

Eric thought they were done, and expected some sort of alarm to be raised, but he wasn’t going to say anything, since openly speculating like that wouldn’t help. He continued forward, eying the silo-like buildings looming over them, waiting for an attack to come.

But nothing happened, and no further drones came to investigate them.

“These things must have the same visual acuity as the termites,” Brontosaurus said. “Our emissions fooled them.”

“Yes,” Eric said. “Lucky for us. But while the smaller units might not have the acuity to differentiate Devastator mechs from alien units, if we let anything bigger than these scouts get close, I think we’re done for.”

Despite his comment, Eric wasn’t entirely convinced they hadn’t been detected. Time would tell…

As they continued forward, the ground became coated in a layer of thin metallic hexagons linked end to end to form a smooth surface, like some kind of cobblestone, or maybe solar tiles. He could see the hexagonal outlines clearly on the thermal band, which told him that the edges were seeping heat.

“Some kind of geothermal collectors designed to collect heat energy produced by the ground?” Brontosaurus asked.

“That would be my guess,” Eric replied.

The four mechs stepped onto the metal tiles, their feet clanging softly. Eric cringed with each footfall, certain that the noise would draw Banthar attackers, but still no ambush came.

Maybe we’re actually going to get away with this…

They reached the line of buildings and passed between two of them. Now that he was close to the cylindrical structures, he realized they were coated in the same hexagonal tiles that covered the ground—the heat seeping out from the edges of each of them clearly demarcated the individual six-sided shapes on the thermal band.

“Look at this shit,” Slate said. “Have to be solar tiles.”

“Maybe,” Eric said. “But why would they still be emitting heat so long after the sun has set?”

“Could they be heat sinks?” Brontosaurus asked. “Helping to recycle and dissipate heat generated within?”

“No, I think they’re probably some variant of solar collectors like Slate says,” Eagleeye commented. “When you have a sun giving you energy, you might as well take it. We do it. But you’re right, Scorp, I’m not sure why they would still be emitting heat.”

“Anyway, who gives a vole’s ass about it?” Slate said. “This whole city is going to be nuked soon. Nuclear incineration, people. It’s going to be a beautiful sight.”

“Nuclear destruction is never a good sight,” Eric said. “Regardless of whether it’s to a friend, or a foe.”

“When it’s aliens who ruined half the Earth, it’s a good sight,” Slate said. “Trust me.”

The hexagonal tiles coating the ground continued into the city so that the mechs still clanged with each step. When they emerged on the other side of the two buildings, there were still no enemy units waiting in ambush.

The team continued forward between the buildings, heading toward the distant silo where the flyer had deposited Bambi and Crusher.

“What do you suppose the aliens are doing to them?” Eagleeye commented.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Eric replied.

The metal cylinders were arranged in hexagonal groups, with six buildings at the points of each shape, with a seventh in the middle. Those hexagons were essentially equivalent to city blocks, with roads zig-zagging alongside the outer edges, forming intersections made of three streets each. It was like looking at the cross-section of a giant beehive.

“None of those escargot are out and about,” Slate said. “Too bad. I was looking forward to dining on some snail tonight.”

“You might get your chance, yet,” Brontosaurus said.

“I wonder why they all have two shells on their backs,” Eagleeye said.

“Looking at it from an evolutionary perspective,” Slate commented. “I’m guessing one shell serves as a decoy, while the other holds their real body when they retreat under duress. It probably improved their chances of survival back when they were still evolving.”

“That was a smarter comment from you than usual,” Brontosaurus told him. “I was expecting you to say the shells exist to hold their two dicks.”

“Yeah, a momentary lapse,” Slate agreed.

“He only makes dick and fart jokes in front of the rest of the team,” Eagleeye said. “You know that by now.”

“Das right,” Slate said. “I have an image to maintain.”

“Though why one would want to maintain the image of the team’s go-to dick joke man, is beyond me,” Brontosaurus said.

A diamond formation of three-legged Sloth units appeared in the distance, emerging from a cross street.

“This way!” Eric immediately swerved to the right, between two of the hexagonal blocks, taking the team out of sight: as he told them earlier, he didn’t want to let those bigger units get too close.

After passing four hexagonal city blocks, he swerved left, turning onto the path toward Bambi and Crusher once again.

Overhead, his attention was drawn to the thermal signature of one of the big airships, which was rapidly approaching.

“Take cover!” Eric immediately dodged behind the closest silo, flattening his body against the surface. The others took up positions beside him. He shut down his comms.

The airship passed by. It didn’t slow down or change direction, and in moments had vanished from view.

Eric reactivated his comms.

“What do you think?” Brontosaurus asked him.

“If we were detected, we’d already have aliens bearing down on us,” Eric said. “Let’s continue.”

Eric and the others left their cover from behind the silo.

“Where’s a little snow when you need it,” Slate commented.

“It’s certainly cold enough,” Eagleeye agreed.

They advanced through the aisle between city blocks, and in that way continued to make their way toward the silo housing Bambi and Crusher. They evaded two more Sloth patrols, and took cover as three more airships passed overhead, until at last they were near the hexagonal city block that harbored the target building.

“So, according to the location you marked on the map, the building is at the center of the hexagon these buildings form,” Brontosaurus said.

“That’s right,” Eric said. He began to round the closest silo: a towering, expansive affair. He hugged the wide surface as he did so, wanting to keep his profile to a minimum. The others followed in single file behind him. Ahead, the building at the center came into view.

It was a little taller than the surrounding buildings, and maybe a little broader, but the biggest difference was the series of defense platforms and other units arrayed in a protective circle around it, all visible on the thermal band. He discerned Sloths and crystalline robots, among other units.

Eric waved a halting hand.

“Uh, not sure we’re going to be entering that building any time soon,” Slate said from behind him; he’d obviously accessed Eric’s feed.

“Not at ground level, no,” Eric said.

“So what are we going to do?” Slate said. “Time’s a-ticking. We got a nuke waiting to go off.”

“I know,” Eric said. He surveyed the building in front of him, lifting his eyes toward the distant top. “I don’t see any evidence of turrets anywhere along the building exterior, nor the rooftop.”

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?” Slate said.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “We climb these buildings, and then leap across.”

“I was afraid you were thinking that,” Slate said.

Eric touched one of his arms to the surface, and activated his mounts to confirm that the surface was magnetic. He felt the suction immediately, and released the magnetization.

“When we reach the top, will our servomotors provide enough power to leap across?” Brontosaurus said.

Eric studied the distance involved between the current building, and the target, as well as the width of the overhead rooftop. With Dee’s help, he performed a quick calculation.

“If we make a running leap,” Eric said. “Then yes, we’ll make it. Barely. We’ll land about two stories down from the roof, and have to climb the rest of the way to the top.”

“And hope to the hell the Banthar machines below don’t notice us,” Slate said.

“What’s with the negativity?” Eagleeye said. “You’re like Mickey now.”

“Only being a realist,” Slate said. “Think about it. We hit the building two stories from the rooftop, we’re going to make a bit of a loud clang.”

“Not if we provide a distraction,” Brontosaurus said. “We still have some demolition blocks in our storage compartments.”

“He’s right,” Eric said. “It’s time to retreat to the buildings across the street, and plant a few charges.”

Eric and the others retreated to the front of the silo, and reverted to their previous diamond formation to cross the street. They approached the closest building on the other side, and hugged the exterior as they passed out of view of the street. Then they ejected their Cicadas from the mechs, retrieved the demolition blocks, and applied them to different locations at the base of the structure.

“So, is the goal to knock down this building, or what?” Slate said. “If so, we don’t have enough charges.”

“Goal is just to distract,” Eric said. “And cover the sound of our impact against the building.”

“Fine,” Slate said.

“You know that the blast won’t be enough to conceal the sound of our ascent,” Eagleeye said. “They’ll still hear us as we’re climbing the two stories to the rooftop. Sure, we’ll be using magnets, and the clangs will be hella soft, but the whirring of our servomotors will give us away.”

“Not if we eject,” Eric said. “And climb the rest of the way in our Cicadas.”

“Do we really want to enter an alien building equipped only with Cicadas?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Not sure we have much choice,” Eric said.

Brontosaurus sighed. “You’re the boss.”

“Hey, since when did we elect Scorp boss anyway?” Slate said.

“Since he took command of the situation,” Eagleeye said.

“Oh,” Slate said.

“You can take over if you want,” Eric told him.

“Uh, that’s all right,” Slate said. “As you were. Boss.”

Eric nodded. “Thank you.”

“By the way, how do we know we’ll be able to enter that building once we reach the rooftop?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Bambi and Crusher were transported from the airship and to the rooftop,” Eric replied. “So there has to be a way.”

“Well, sure,” Brontosaurus said. “But how do we know we’ll be able to open it?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Eric affixed the final block. “We’ll have to set the blocks on a countdown, since we’ll be too far to remotely detonate the charges, given the reduced range of our transmitters.”

“We could switch our antennae to directional mode and amp up the range…” Slate said.

“I’d rather not risk giving away our position,” Eric said. “Even with a directional burst. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason we haven’t alerted the Banthar to our presence so far is because of our reduced transmission range.”

He returned to his Devastator, and folded into a ball as the cockpit sealed behind him.

They continued to eject, placing the remainder of their charges on the exteriors of random buildings scattered alongside the street. The team members set the timers on these ones far higher: the goal was to mask their eventual retreat.

When they’d placed the last of the charges, the team returned in their mechs to the buildings ringing the target and rounded the exterior of one of them in single-file until the street was out of view. They stopped before the target was in sight, and proceeded to climb, using their magnetic mounts to secure them to the surface.

Eric was conspicuously aware of the soft clangs produced by each attachment of the mounts, and the even louder whirring of the servomotors that the surface reflected.

“Isn’t anyone else worried that they’re going to hear our servomotors?” Brontosaurus said.

“We’re too far away at this point,” Eagleeye said. “Because of the way sound is echoing from the buildings, they won’t be able to pinpoint the source. If they do hear us, they’ll think some Sloths are passing by on the street beyond.”

“Wouldn’t the direction of sound be similarly obscured if we were climbing the silo at the center of the hexagon?” Brontosaurus said. “So maybe we don’t need to abandon our mechs for Cicadas after all.”

“Yes, but the noise would be louder, and we’d be in plain view if they decided to look around,” Eagleeye said. “Do you really want to take that risk?”

“No,” Brontosaurus admitted.

The four of them continued to climb. Eric kept an eye on the demolition block timer the whole time, and paced himself accordingly. He also glanced downward constantly, looking to see if any Banthar units were approaching to investigate the disturbance. None came.

Finally, he and the others reached the top. There was a balcony railing running along the edge, which any Banthar residents no doubt used to feel safe while they leisurely viewed their city from above.

Eric carefully peered over the edge and confirmed that the rooftop was empty before pulling himself over the railing. The bars bent under his weight, but he wasn’t too worried about the damage. When he was over, he scanned the sky for signs of airships, but none were nearby.

At the center of the rooftop, he spotted a pair of double doors embedded flat in the surface, likely providing entry into the building.

“See, we’ll have a way in,” Eric said.

He turned toward the far edge of the rooftop, where the target awaited beyond. He could just see the upper tip of the building.

“Stay back.” He approached the round ledge at a crouch, and dropped down entirely when he reached it.

The entire destination building was in view. He surveyed the troops at its base, then retreated, rejoining the others near the center of the rooftop.

“Okay,” Eric said. “None of the troops have moved. We’re good.” He glanced at his timer. “The first charges are going to go off in thirty seconds.”

He and the others hurried to the far side of the building, and waited. Dee had computed the optimal speed and angle for the jump, as well as the timing required so that his impact coincided with the detonation.

He gave control of his mech over to Dee, and four seconds before detonation she amped up his servomotor output and dashed across the rooftop. Eric was worried the relatively loud clanging from himself and the other mechs would alert the Banthar units, but there was nothing for it now—he was committed to the plan.

He reached the edge of the rooftop, and Dee leaped off. He arced over the courtyard below, between the space separating the central building from the surrounding structures, and the wind streaked past his ears.

The target came up fast—he would hit precisely two stories down from the rooftop; he glanced at his timer a moment before impact, and watched as it reached zero.

He struck the building and ejected his Cicada at the same time; he heard the loud clang of impact and detonation. A flash momentarily lit the courtyard below: according to his timer, the charges had detonated at the same time he and the others had hit.

He flew upward as the momentum of jettisoning carried him a full story into the air, and then he activated the magnetic mounts of his Cicada unit and latched on. He and the others were extremely vulnerable now—without the emitters built onto their mechs, they wouldn’t be recognized as Sloth units.

Eric glanced downward nervously.

Beyond his mech, which had flattened itself to the building, he could see the Banthar units far below: none of them had moved from their positions, nor did any of them seem to be glancing upward.

An alert sounded somewhere nearby, and airships rushed over the buildings, toward the adjacent block where the charges had detonated.

Eric exhaled in relief.

He began to climb, as did the Cicadas of the others beside him.

The servomotors on these units were far softer than those of the mechs, as were the gentle clanks as they removed and reattached their magnetic mounts. Even so, Eric kept glancing downward as he climbed, but the guard units failed to notice them, to his relief.

He gazed over his shoulder, toward the building on the adjacent street where the detonation had taken place, and saw several airships had gathered. In the street there, he could also see a slew of Sloths and other alien mechs gathering.

He wondered if those mechs would spot the other charges the team had laid.

Well, no point worrying about it now. The first part of the plan had worked. It was time to save Bambi and Crusher.

He reached the upper railing, and confirmed that no enemy units or defense platforms were waiting on the rooftop. He silently pulled himself through the railing, as did the other three Cicadas.

18

Eric left the edge of the rooftop so that he wasn’t in view of the units far below. Not that it mattered overly much, considering the mechs still hanging on to the exterior would probably stand out, even if the Devastators had flattened themselves against the surface as much as possible under the control of the Accomps. The distraction would only keep the Banthar occupied for so long. Plus, he still had the secondary charges to worry about. If the team didn’t make it back to the roof before the explosives started detonating, the diversion would be wasted.

Have to move quickly...

Eric studied the pair of horizontal double doors embedded in the center of the rooftop. They were bigger than the doors he had left behind on the adjacent building, capable of fitting two or three Devastators at the same time—not that he had to worry about fitting, given his current size. Bay doors was probably a better description.

“Any ideas on how we’re going to pry those bitches open in these bodies?” Slate said.

“With difficulty.” Eric approached the doors.

At the corner of his eye, movement caught his attention—he amped up his time sense, mindful of the battery drain that would cause. In slow motion, alien defense platforms deployed, unfolding from panels hidden beneath the surface of the roof. Muzzles shoved upward, and joined with focusing lenses that swung into place from behind.

Eric activated the concealed panels in his forearms, and deployed the P-21 plasma and a L-52 laser weapons in his left and right arms respectively.

“Dee, I want the mechs on the rooftop, pronto!” Eric ordered. “The gig is up!”

He rolled toward one of the forming defense platforms, and fired his plasma and laser at the same time. But an energy field had already activated around the unit, and Eric’s shots were dissipated by the half-sphere that flashed into view.

He heard repeated clangs coming from behind him as the Devastators scaled the two stories to the rooftop. The mechs would be zig-zagging while ascending to avoid any attacks from below, only deploying their ballistic shields if the attacks became too intense to dodge, because they couldn’t climb while the shields were active. He hoped the Devastators reached the top before either they, or the Cicadas, were destroyed.

Four alien defense platforms had emerged, and Eric and the Cicadas focused their attention on one platform each, drawing their fire away from the others. Eric dove to the rooftop and rolled upon the metal surface as he unleashed his weapons; he kept his time sense relatively high, and that, combined with his rapid-fire shots, was really draining the smaller battery of his Cicada.

Finally the Devastators arrived; they swung over the balcony railings, crushing them in the process, and launched their spears. The weapons smashed into shields weakened by the Cicada attacks, and penetrated to strike the turrets inside, sending electrical sparks passing up and down the surfaces of the four defense platforms. The mechs did all of this before landing so that by the time four loud thuds echoed in rapid succession across the roof, all four platforms were down.

Eric hurried to his mech and retrieved the collection gloves, then he rushed to the closest platform and ripped the spear from it. He retreated to his Devastator, jumped onto the rungs leading to the torso, and restored the spear to the slot on the waiting arm by slamming it home. He pulled himself into the cockpit, compacting his body into a sphere before the hatch closed behind him. He switched his consciousness to that of the mech, and awoke in the body of the Devastator.

He allocated a small portion of battery power to recharge the Cicada, and then turned toward the double doors embedded in the rooftop surface.

“Now we’ll be able to rip open those doors!” Slate said.

Eric rushed the center of the rooftop, right behind Slate. The latter’s Devastator dug his hand into the small crack between the two doors, and tugged toward his body, crumpling the metal in the immediate area. Eric joined him, doing the same on the opposite side, and peeled the door back from its frame, revealing a cylindrical drop lit by blue strips of light; it was like a well, of sorts, but without water at the bottom.

Overhead, the thermal signatures of airships were rapidly rushing in.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore that we’re still emitting Sloth signatures...” Eagleeye said.

Incoming plasma bolts flashed toward the team from the lead airships.

“Nope!” Eric jumped into the opening.

Slate and Brontosaurus were right behind him, while Eagleeye brought up the rear, returning fire before the lip of the drop blocked his view of the airships.

Eric landed on the hexagonal tiles that seemed to permeate Banthar architecture. He was in a broad chamber of some sort, shaped like a hexagon. Walker style robots lined the walls, and they sprung to life when Eric hit the floor.

Knowing that the walkers were likely shielded, Eric deployed his Wolverine blades, and lunged for the closest. As expected, his spears struck an energy field, and the alien blades passed right through, draining the shield; he struck the walker underneath, and it collapsed in a shower of electricity. He deployed his ballistic shield as the next unit fired at him, and he ducked behind the metal; a red circle appeared on the inside, marking the impact. He ran at the unit and slammed his blades home, while Slate, Brontosaurus and Eagleeye attacked the other walkers behind him. In short order, the team had destroyed them all.

He glanced at the statuses of his teammates: the most damage any of them had obtained was to their ballistic shields.

A cylindrical tunnel at the far side of the chamber offered the only way forward, so he dashed into it. The width was big enough only for one Devastator at a time, so they had to advance in single file. Slate brought up the rear.

He heard loud clangs coming from the chamber behind him.

“Got Sloths!” Slate announced.

Eric piped Slate’s video feed into the upper right of his vision, and watched as Sloth units fell from above, no thanks to the airships.

Slate rushed forward to engage the three-legged robots. Slate had his ballistic shield held toward the newcomers, protecting him from the brunt of any gamma ray attacks. He fired his laser cannon into the closest Sloth, weakening the energy shield that enveloped the unit, and then stabbed his alien blades through it and into the alien mech. Another Sloth unleashed plasma bolts at Slate’s exposed side, but Eagleeye was there with his own ballistic shield to protect him.

“We’ll hold them off until you find Bambi and Crusher!” Eagleeye rushed the next unit, employing the same tactic Slate had used to take down the first.

“No!” Eric said. “I’m not leaving anyone behind!”

“You have to come back this way, anyway!” Eagleeye said. “Go!”

That was true, considering there was no way Eric and Brontosaurus would be able to exit the building at ground level, not with all those troops waiting for them below.

Reluctantly, Eric continued forward, while Brontosaurus faithfully remained close behind him.

Termites rushed down into the tunnel from behind, also unleashed from the airships no doubt, but the repelling devices embedded in the Devastators kept them at bay. It did make advancement slightly difficult, however, because Eric could no longer see more than two meters in any direction.

He fired his energy cannon, and it carved a cylindrical tunnel through the micro machines, but the hole was quickly replaced by other termites. He swung his ballistic shield in front of him, in case any unseen attackers should open fire.

Sure enough, a large red-hot area appeared in the center, and he knew he was taking fire. He gazed past the edge of the shield, and caught a glimpse of a fresh tunnel carved through the termites closing up.

He rushed forward, and abruptly his motion ceased as his ballistic shield hit an energy field. He stabbed his blades forward, piercing the shield and the Sloth hiding inside of it. The wreckage of the Sloth blocked his path forward, and he had to shove it to the side and squeeze past before he could continue.

He encountered two more Sloths and dispatched them in a similar manner. A defense platform also unfolded from the ceiling at one point, and he closed with it and stabbed it with the spears. The termites continued to surround and blind him and Brontosaurus the whole time.

He reached a grav elevator of sorts, because one moment he was stepping on solid ground, and the next he was floating in midair. Brontosaurus stepped into the air beside him, and together they hovered in place in the shaft. Meanwhile, the termites lingered in the corridor just beyond the grav elevator.

“Why aren’t they following?” Brontosaurus said.

“Dunno,” Eric said. “Could be their programming prohibits them from entering grav elevators—assuming that’s what this is. Or maybe they’re just not equipped to navigate zero G environments.”

“But we saw termites operating in space before…” Brontosaurus said. “During the last invasion.”

“Yes, but those could have been specially designed termites,” Eric said.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” Brontosaurus said. “So, a grav elevator huh? How do we use it?”

“Good question,” Eric said. “We don’t have access to whatever remote interface the Banthar use. So we’re probably going to have to climb.”

Eric bent his knees so that his soles were facing the round wall opposite the hallway, and activated the magnetic mounts in his feet; he amped up the power output, and he slowly floated toward the metal surface. Mindful of the battery drain, he lowered the power level as he neared the surface, and when he made contact, he turned the mounts off entirely.

Selectively magnetizing different limbs, he swiveled his body around until his head was pointing downward, and then he alternately activated and deactivated his hands and feet to descend. Brontosaurus followed above him, and together they made their way down the tunnel that composed the grav elevator.

Eventually another opening appeared in the wall across from them. The next level, no doubt.

“I got a bead on Bambi and Crusher,” Brontosaurus said.

Eric glanced at his overhead map. The indicators for the two of them appeared to be about two stories down, and some distance to the left. “I see them. Bambi, Crusher, do you read?”

Nothing came back.

“That can’t be good,” Brontosaurus said.

“No,” Eric agreed.

They continued downward, passing another opening, until they arrived at the third, which lined up with the level where Bambi and Crusher were located.

Eric shoved off from the wall, and floated toward the opening. As soon as he passed out of the tunnel, gravity took hold once more, and he was glued to the floor.

“Nice.” Eric moved forward, making room for Brontosaurus. They continued forward in single file once more.

Three milk robots blocked Eric’s path ahead.

He promptly rushed them, and stabbed his spears repeatedly into the crystal shells of their bodies. Electricity sparked across the stricken robots, and they vibrated to pieces.

Eric unceremoniously stepped over the shards that littered the floor, crunching them beneath his metal feet.

The corridor curved left and right, and he had to face an attack from another Sloth, and a defense platform, but then finally he reached the door that led to his girls. At least, their signals emanated from beyond.

The door itself was hexagonal in shape, and offset from the surrounding wall so that it appeared embossed. He slid his fingers into the edges, and ripped it open.

Beyond awaited a large room. Three big slabs hovered above the floor, with several smaller ones beside them. Two of the big slabs were occupied by the lifeless forms of Devastator mechs, while the smaller slabs beside them contained Cicadas.

Bambi.

And Crusher.

Spherical metal shapes with long arms floated above them. Those arms ended in pincers, which they used to remove long cylinders from the bodies of each Cicada.

Those cylinders were the AI cores. Everything that made Bambi and Crusher who they were. Their minds.

In a fit of rage, Eric shot forward. He sliced through the arms of each robot with his blades, and caught the AI cores before they hit the ground. Then with his free hand, he unleashed his PR-97 plasma weapon at point blank range, and incinerated half the spherical bodies in turn. The wreckages crashed to the floor.

Eric gingerly lowered one of the AI cores to the table next to the body it had been removed from. Then he inserted the remaining core into the other body, and then attempted to activate the remote interface.

Nothing came up on his list of available access points.

Was he too late?

He tried again.

No interface appeared, other than his own and Brontosaurus’.

“Anything?” Brontosaurus asked.

Eric shook his head.

He went to the second body and inserted the remaining AI core. He refreshed the access point list; no interface appeared for that unit either.

He slumped.

Bambi and Crusher. My girls.

“Maybe the interfaces have been damaged in some way,” Brontosaurus said. “But both AI cores are otherwise intact.”

Eric nodded. “I’ll just have to carry their AI cores all the way back to Earth.”

He leaned over the closest Cicada, and was about to remove the AI core so that he could stow it in the storage compartment of his mech, when he decided to try one last thing.

He retrieved the cable needed for manual interfacing, and connected it to the chest area of the robot.

He was encouraged when an interface appeared on his HUD.

He selected reboot, and then connected the cable to the second Cicada and issued the same command.

“You think they’ll load up?” Brontosaurus said.

Eric didn’t answer.

A moment later the blue lights on the first visor lit up.

“Mon ami,” Bambi said.

Relief flooded him.

“Bonjour, mon amour,” Eric said. My love.

Her Cicada sat up. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear your voice.”

“And I yours,” Eric said. “All systems are operational?”

“They are,” Bambi said.

“Then head over to your Crab and get loaded up,” Eric said. “We have a few diversionary charges that will be going off shortly, and a nuke to outrun.”

“Merde!” Bambi leaped to her Crab. Without the carapace section, it looked almost like a Devastator, and for a moment Eric thought she had chosen the wrong unit.

Beside him Crusher’s Cicada activated. She lifted her upper body, and glanced first at Eric, then her torso. She raised a hand, and formed a fist. “Well, that was fun.”

“Are you good?” Eric asked her.

“All systems fully functional and ready to kick ass,” Crusher said.

“Good,” Eric told her.

“What are you waiting for?” Bambi said from her Crab. “We have a nuke to outrun!”

“Well, when you put it that way...” Crusher leaped to her feet and folded her Cicada into the cockpit of her Devastator. The unit arose a moment later. “Let’s show these Banthar that no one messes with the Bolt Eaters.”

19

Eric led the charge through the corridor. Two more milk robots attempted to intercept him, but he smashed them with his alien blades. Bambi followed behind him in her reduced Crab unit, while Crusher and Brontosaurus came after her in their Devastators.

Eric reached the grav elevator and leaped inside the shaft. His momentum carried him across to the far side, and he latched on with his magnetic mounts and began to climb. The others floated across in turn underneath him, until they were all scaling the shaft.

He glanced at his power levels. Forty percent. Good so far.

He reached the top floor, and glanced at the corridor leading away from the shaft. Termites rested inside, lining the walls, floor and ceiling. They swarmed upon seeing him, filling the passage with a black cloud of micro machine bodies. As previously, none of the termites entered the shaft of the grav elevator itself.

Eric released his magnetic mounts and shoved off from the wall so that he was hurtling toward the termites. When he entered the corridor, the cloud of micro machines cleared from his path, thanks to the repelling emitters built into his mech. Gravity pulled his feet to the ground with a loud clank.

He moved forward, making room for the three mechs behind him. He used his map to guide him through the dark veil those micro machines laid across his vision, until he heard the sound of combat up ahead. He glanced at his overhead map, and saw the indicators of Eagleeye and Slate up ahead. They were inside the first chamber, next to the entrance, with several red dots opposite them.

The corridor widened into that chamber, and the termites cleared in front of him until he found Eagleeye and Slate. The pair were crouched behind the piled bodies of several Sloth units. The micro machine cloud enveloped the space beyond that pile, blotting out the rest of the room. The two mechs occasionally fired their plasma and energy weapons past the edge of the wreckages, cutting a swath through those micro machines, and hitting the energy shield of some other unit lurking beyond them.

Slate looked over his shoulder. “‘Bout time you fuckers showed up. Our batteries are taking some major strain.”

Eric took cover behind the robot bodies, and glanced at their battery levels as displayed on his HUD. Slate and Eagleeye were down to fifteen percent each.

“We wanted to give you some me time,” Bambi commented.

“Me time,” Slate said. “Ha. If I wanted me time, I would have booked a trip to the dark side of the moon rather than taking this mission.”

“We can’t stay here,” Eric said.

“You think?” Slate fired his weapon past the pile of bodies. An energy beam smashed through the termites in return, and drilled a hole through a ruined Sloth in front of Slate.

“I guess I actually thought you had a plan to get us out,” Crusher said. She had taken cover beside him.

Eric studied the overhead map on his HUD. “Look at the grav shaft.”

“What?” Brontosaurus said. He leaned past the edge of the debris to let off a shot, tunneling a path through the micro machines.

“It looks like it follows the eastern side of the building all the way down,” Eric said.

The mapping sensors had recorded the entire eastern exterior of the building before the team had entered, and once inside, the software had overlaid the interior as the team explored the different sections. And like he just said, the elevator shaft bordered the eastern side of the building all the way down. Or at least, as far as Eric had explored it.

“So?” Brontosaurus said.

“So we shoot our way through it,” Bambi said.

“I like how you think, Woman,” Slate said.

“You would,” Crusher said.

“You’re going to let Slate get away with flirting with her?” Eagleeye asked Eric.

Bambi fired off a shot from the far side of their cover. “Actually, I’m not sure if he was trying to flirt with me or insult me. Probably a little of both.”

“In the middle of combat, I’ll let him get away with just about anything!” Eric said. “Retreat to the shaft!”

Eric left the wreckages, and returned to the corridor. The termites enveloped him once more, blotting out his view, so he relied on the map to retrace his steps. Via that map, he also confirmed that the others were following. Slate brought up the rear, keeping his ballistic shield angled behind him. Eric did the same, in case a stray shot managed to find its way through.

He reached the grav shaft, and the termites opened up in front of him. He fired his energy cannon in rapid succession, but the alien material on the far wall was taking its time about disintegrating.

“It’s going to take more than a few hits!” Eric said.

He leaped across, hitting the far side. He used his magnets to scramble upward and out of the way, and then resumed firing.

The other mechs entered the termite-free shaft, and attached themselves to the wall next to the blast crater he was forming. They joined in, adding their fire to his.

“Maybe we should stab our alien spears through,” Brontosaurus suggested.

“Good idea.” Slate slammed his Wolverine blades into the surface, and while the weapons penetrated, he was unable to slide the spears in any other direction. He pulled them free, and stabbed again, repeatedly, forming several holes.

“That’s good, Slate,” Eric said. “Get back so we can finish this.”

Slate removed his blade and stepped away from the crater. Then he and the other mechs unleashed hell, firing everything they had.

“Eagleeye, Slate, hold your fire,” Eric said. “Conserve energy.”

Even without them, the remaining four mechs did enough damage to carve a mech-sized hole clean through the wall. Eric could see the thermal signature of the courtyard, and the adjacent building beyond.

A plasma bolt fired from the hallway next to the shaft, and struck the edge of the blast hole.

“Looks like our Banthar friends are trying to help us enlarge the hole!” Slate said.

“No, they’re trying to kill us,” Eric said. “Pull yourself out, and shove off!”

Eric hauled himself through the hole in the building exterior, and latched on outside. He glanced up, and saw the many airships that had gathered above the rooftop. Looking down, he saw the troops on alert. They began to fire energy weapons at him.

He amped up his servomotor output and pushed off, arcing outward. He didn’t have enough momentum to reach the adjacent building, but he would more than clear the troops at the base of the silo below. He held his shield underneath him, almost like a bodyboarder, and swiveled it out of the way before he landed.

He hit the ground running, and swung his shield behind him to protect him from the continued fire. On his HUD, red highlights appeared on the silhouette of his mech that was located in the lower right of his vision, highlighting the damage the hard landing had caused to the actuators in his feet. Most of them had had their power output permanently reduced by fifty percent, but he still had more than enough capacity to run. And fast.

Behind him, the other mechs landed one by one. Like him, they held their shields behind them, and opened fire sporadically at the troops there.

Eric ran toward the closest building in a zig-zag pattern, and the others adopted similar motions behind him.

Up ahead, Sloths and other mechs came into view as they rounded the upcoming silo. Eric swung his shield forward and opened fire as he rushed them. He reached the Sloths, and ripped into them with his alien blades. The spears drained their energy shields, and penetrated through to the metal bodies inside. Crusher and Bambi were at his side, and they carved a path through the enemy units. Milk robots exploded under their onslaught, and Sloths fell surrounded by electrical sparks.

Eric and the others quickly rounded the silo, dashing out of view of the courtyard and the enemy troops it contained.

Overhead, airships hovered into view. They began to drop more troops. Walkers. Sloths. And milk robots.

Just then, the first set of charges Eric and the others had placed on the nearby buildings detonated. One of the silos a block away toppled over.

Several of the airships swerved away to investigate.

Eric and the others smashed their way through these latest attackers. Another set of charges went off, and more of the airships diverted.

Eric broke through the latest line of attackers, and raced down the street. Crusher, Bambi, and Brontosaurus followed, with both Eagleeye and Slate bringing up the rear, firing over shields that they held behind them.

Plasma fire came down from above, and Eric aimed at one of the airships and released a shot; a big energy field flashed into place around the vessel.

Eric and the others could have launched their spears in a coordinated attack to take down the airship, but that would leave them defenseless against any other attackers that came at them on the ground, considering how useless their non-spear weapons were against the enemy.

Two of the airships swooped into the street, descending below the height of the silos on either side, and activated tractor beams. Most of the team managed to avoid the beams, but Eric was partially caught by one of them, and began to rise.

“Uh,” Eric said.

Bambi leaped at him and grabbed his ankle, yanking him out. He landed on his side and scrambled to his feet, dodging as the airship veered toward him and attempted to snatch him in the tractor beam again. Eric released a few energy shots upward as he ran, and as expected the bolts smashed into the underside of the craft—in order to use the tractor beam, the airships had to deactivate their energy shields.

More of the previously planted charges went off, these located on buildings to either side. Two of the silos began to topple into the street. The airships deactivated their tractor beams to engage their energy shields, and the falling buildings clipped the fields of both airships. The vessels attempted to maneuver out of the way, so as to reduce the drain on their shields, and promptly collided. The shields deactivated entirely, and the craft smashed into one another. They fell with the collapsing towers.

Eric and the others meanwhile dove underneath, and weaved between the falling debris. Eric steered them into a nearby hexagonal courtyard, and ducked behind the intact buildings there.

“Lucky,” Eagleeye said.

“Not luck,” Slate said. “But exceptional foresight. I was the one that planted these particular charges, bitch.”

“What are you saying, you’re psychic?” Eagleeye asked.

“I could be, bitch,” Slate said. “So you better keep that in mind next time you mess with me, because I’ve already foreseen my metal fist pulverizing your flimsy head. Several times.”

Eric watched as support troops flooded the street, searching for the Bolt Eaters among the ruins. He and the others kept their bodies pressed against the current building as more airships swept past overhead.

Some of those troops were fanning out toward Eric’s current location, so he ducked from view. He was ready to fire when they reappeared.

“We still appear as Sloths, so what’s the problem?” Brontosaurus said.

“We’ve been flagged, no doubt,” Eric said. “Plus Bambi and Crusher are with us, and they definitely give us away.”

“We could stay behind…” Bambi said.

“No,” Eric said. “We didn’t rescue you only to abandon you in the end.”

Another explosion rocked the area, and the airships overhead instantly pulled away. Eric peered past the edge of the building, but the troops had retreated as well.

“Let’s go!” Eric raced across the courtyard, in the opposite direction, and emerged from the hexagonal group of buildings on the far side.

Eric kept close to the edge of the street, next to the line of silos, not wanting to venture too far into the open. As he ran, another explosion went off somewhere in the distance.

“How many charges did you guys place?” Bambi asked.

“That would be the last of them,” Eric replied.

“Too bad,” Crusher said. “I was beginning to think that the other Bolt Eaters were responsible.”

“No,” Eric said. “They’re waiting for us on the outskirts of the city. At least, they’re supposed to be.”

The streets here were empty.

For now.

Eric turned toward the south, toward the aforementioned outskirts. Behind him, he spotted alien tanks and mechs ambling into view, so he immediately took a side street.

“Well. lookee here,” Slate said. “We gots ourselves a snail audience. Check out the balconies.”

Eric glanced upward, toward the tops of the silos. Sure enough, on most of the rooftops, snail-like Banthar watched the proceedings from those floating platforms of theirs.

Slate aimed his laser toward one of the rooftops, and fired. The stricken Banthar fell off its platform, and plunged the entire distance to the street below. It landed with a splatter.

“Fricasseed snail!” Slate commented. He laughed raucously.

The other Banthar quickly vanished from the rooftops.

“Aww, you scared them off,” Eagleeye said.

Slate turned toward the street where the dead Banthar had fallen.

“Slate, what are you doing?” Eric said.

“Getting a souvenir!” Slate said.

“Leave it!” Eric said.

He glanced at his rearview camera feed. The tanks and mechs had come into view once more.

Slate continued into the side street.

“Slate!” Eric commanded.

Slate hesitated, then finally turned around. “Fine. Geez. All I wanted was a little piece of alien escargot for my mantelpiece.”

“There will be no mantelpiece for you to return to if you get shot!” Eric said.

Eric took another street, racing out of view of the pursuers, but then airships appeared overhead.

He immediately swiveled his ballistic shield skyward as energy bolts came in. Tractor beams activated, and he weaved between the cylindrical light fields. Sloths dropped into his path, and he hewed them down. Termites also launched, but the enemy kept them back, mostly using them for scouting purposes, Eric thought.

The outskirts were just ahead. Eric amped up his comm signal, since there was no point in keeping it reduced at the moment. On his overhead map, the other Bolt Eaters showed up once more, crouched on the periphery of an estate just outside the city.

“We see you,” Marlborough said. “Get ready for a little dance.”

Apparently some of those Bolt Eaters had entered the city and placed demolition charges, because around Eric, explosives began to detonate, covering his escape. Some of the buildings toppled, blocking the path of pursuing units. One of the lower flying airships was struck by one, and brought down. The termite swarm split up to investigate, and several other pursuers broke away as well.

As the team emerged from the silos that bordered the city limits, suppressive fire erupted from the Bolt Eaters deployed at the opposite estate. The remaining termites were cut down in big swathes as energy weapons ate through them. Sloths and walkers were also hit, with less effectiveness.

Eric reached the unpaved aisle between two of the estates, and the other Bolt Eaters from the estate fell in behind the team.

“Welcome back, Kotter,” Mickey said.

“I never watched that show,” Eric said.

“Neither did I,” Mickey said. “But it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Explosions rocked the area as the two estates behind them erupted in huge fireballs.

“Nice!” Slate commented. “Who’s handiwork?”

“That’d be mine,” Tread replied.

“I always said you were a pyromaniac,” Slate said. “I’m going to call you Pyro from now on.”

“Better than being a nymphomaniac like me,” Bambi said.

“Ooo!” Slate said. “Did you know I have satyriasis?”

“Satyr what?” Eagleeye said.

“The male equivalent!” Slate said.

“You would know that,” Hicks said.

“Hey, I’m a machine with a dictionary of all known words embedded in his database,” Slate said. “You might want to try accessing yours sometime.”

“Too lazy,” Hicks commented.

Airships swooped past overhead, and began to drop Sloths. Some of them also activated tractor beams. The Bolt Eaters targeted the latter ships with their weapons, causing the craft to disengage the tractor beams to reactivate their energy shields.

Eric dropped the range of his transmissions now that he’d rejoined the Bolt Eaters—no point in continually broadcasting his position to the enemy, even if they did know where he was already.

In a few minutes they had cut their way through the enemy units and left behind the outlying farms for the forest. However, the thin trees offered little cover from the airships, which continued to assail them with plasma bolts and tractor beam capture attempts. He saw the trees well enough on the thermal and night vision bands, thanks to the lack of an all-enclosing canopy overhead.

Since they were outside the city, apparently the Banthar had the go-ahead to launch bioweapons, because Dragonworms exited the hangar bays of some of the airships now.

“Uh, whose idea was it to go and stir the hornet’s nest again?” Dunnigan asked.

“That would be Scorp,” Traps replied.

“I never asked any of you to come with me,” Eric said.

“We wouldn’t have had it any other way!” Dickson commented.

20

Eric fired at the Dragonworms as they descended through the thin boughs to attack. A silk net from one of the bioweapons came in at him, and he cut through it with his alien blades. He fired his energy cannon at the worm in return and blew off its head.

Spherical scouts also came in, firing netting similar to the Dragonworms. Eric and the others zig-zagged their way forward, bashing and shooting the scouts out of the air, and cutting through the nets before they could strike.

He glanced at his power levels. He was down to thirty percent. Among the rest of the team, Eagleeye and Slate were in the worst shape, at below ten percent. They weren’t firing their weapons very often, Eric noticed. It was all about the alien blades, for them.

“This way!” Marlborough said. Highlights appeared on Eric’s HUD, marking the direction he should take. He realized that it led to a thicker copse among the forest. The place was a solid band of darkness on his night vision, thanks to the canopy that blocked out the sky overhead. When he entered, he had to switch to LIDAR to make out the trunks: he set the range as low as possible so as not to overly broadcast his position.

He weaved between the white wireframes his LIDAR generated, and all at once the trees began to shift. Some of the branches bent down toward him, and Eric narrowly sidestepped, chopping them away.

“Gots ourselves a tree creature!” Dickson said.

“I was hoping as much,” Marlborough said. “Out of the copse, now!”

The team fled the copse as the entire group of trees came alive. Behind them, Sloths and Dragonworms were snatched up in rapid succession by the living branches, and carried into the trunks where they promptly vanished.

Eric deactivated his LIDAR now that he was out in the thinner forest again. Glancing in his rear view mirror, he watched as the copse shifted, and thrust skyward. The giant quadruped those trees were attached to snarled, flashing those white teeth in the dim starlight. It leaped into the air, thrusting toward one of the airships that pursued the Bolt Eaters. An energy shield flashed into existence around that craft, and the tree creature dropped.

“This way!” Marlborough said.

Eric followed the new directional overlay on his HUD, and swerved due south.

Most of the airships swerved to intercept the tree creature, while three continued to shadow the party overhead. Some Dragonworms also followed alongside, but those were quickly shot down by the team.

One of the airships attempted to activate a tractor beam; Slate slid out of the way, and fired his energy weapon into the underside. An explosion came from inside the exposed hangar bay, and the beam shut off.

“Score!” Slate said.

The airship retreated, leaving only two.

The pair pulled back, content to merely shadow the group, for now.

“They’re keeping us in sight,” Dickson said. “So that when their friends are done with the tree creature, they can easily pick up the pursuit.”

“We have to shake them,” Mickey said.

“Bolt Eaters, prepare to fire spears,” Marlborough said. “Loop back.”

Eric swung back toward the airships, but the craft seemed to know what the team was planning, because they adjusted their positions, and stayed out of range.

“Damn,” Marlborough said. “Continue toward the mountain range, then. Full speed.”

The Bolt Eaters abandoned the two craft, and continued south.

Eric wondered about their situation, and what could be done.

“We all have Sloth emitters,” Traps said. “Only Bambi and Crusher don’t. But if we remove their AI cores, and stow them in our storage compartments, we’ll all be Sloths again.”

“That’s true,” Frogger said. “But despite our friendly signatures, they’ve marked us enemy units, no doubt.”

“I wonder how accurate that marking is,” Hicks said. “If we were to face a group of Sloths, and intermingle with them, maybe they’d lose track.”

“It’s possible,” Frogger said. “But then again, the enemy will closely investigate any Sloth units it comes across, going forward. Seeing as they know that we can mimic Sloths, now.”

“Our only hope is to reach the mountains,” Eric said. “And hope we lose the aliens in the tunnels.”

“Eight kilometers away,” Slate said. “That’s half an hour at our current speed. A lot can happen in thirty minutes.”

“I hate to do this,” Marlborough said. “But we’re going to have to up our pace. Can you handle maximum speed, Eagleeye, Slate?”

“Yeah,” Slate said. “But by the time we reach the mountains, we’ll be almost empty.”

“Hicks, Traps, link up with them,” Marlborough said. “Share some charge.”

“You got it,” Hicks said. He ejected his Cicada, and while his Devastator was still running, grabbed the charging cable, leaped onto Slate’s unit, and attached it. He returned to his unit and entered the cockpit. Traps similarly connected his Devastator to Eagleeye’s.

“We have to maintain a faster pace, anyway,” Dickson said. “Remember, the bomb is set to detonate in only nine hours now. We have to be a hundred kilometers away if we want to clear the firestorm.”

“No one has forgotten,” Hicks said.

“Really?” Dickson said. “Sometimes I wonder…”

The trees became thicker, but still there weren’t enough to completely block the sky, making it impossible to lose the airships that mirrored them.

Eagleeye sent his repurposed drones forward to act as scouts.

“Hey Slate,” Eagleeye said while the Bolt Eaters continued the run. “Remember when we visited Venice Beach, five years ago?”

“I’m a robot, of course I remember,” Slate said.

“Venice Beach?” Bambi asked.

“It’s in California, outside Los Angeles,” Slate replied.

“I know where it is,” Bambi said. “What’s the significance.”

“No significance,” Slate said. “It was basically an orgy of organic and robot bodies, centered around me.”

“Ah,” Bambi said. “I guess I didn’t miss anything.”

“Actually, you did,” Slate said. “Why’d you bring it up, Eagleeye?”

“No reason,” Eagleeye said. “Except as a contrast to our current situation. Living there, in that tiny shack on the beach we rented, that was the closest I’ve ever come to paradise. The girls, the waves, the sand, the food… seriously, if I could go back to any point in my life, it would be there.”

“Why’d you guys leave?” Hicks said.

“It was a vacation,“ Eagleeye said. “We wanted to get back to the team. I thought I could reproduce the whole thing in VR, but it just wasn’t the same. I don’t know why.”

“Makes me think that even if you did go back there, you probably wouldn’t be happy,” Tread said.

“You’re probably right,” Eagleeye said. “What happened there was a time capsule that can never be reproduced, in any age. Slate and I just happened to be there at the right point in history, when sex with androids was still considered a big thing by humans who’d never done it. We were treated like kings, not just by the women, but everyone.”

“Now you understand what it was like for me when I was a rapper,” Slate said. “Some things, and feelings, just can’t be replicated.” He sighed. “We used to live like kings. And now look at us. Running from an alien race intent on our capture, and eventual dismantling. A nuclear bomb scheduled to go off less than nine hours from now, and at the moment, it’s questionable whether we’ll escape the blast radius. Yes, things have taken quite the drastic turn for the worse.”

“It all started when Manticore attacked us back on Earth,” Mickey said.

“That would be the root cause, yes,” Slate agreed. “I hope that bitch is at the epicenter of the blast.”

“He’s probably following along in one of those airships,” Traps said.

“Yeah, with our luck, he’ll escape destruction,” Eagleeye said.

“Well, that isn’t so bad,” Slate said. “Means I get to kill him myself. Which is what I wanted to do in the first place.”

“Hey, I called dibs on killing him,” Traps said.

“No you didn’t, bitch,” Slate said. “I get to do it.”

“I think it should be me who performs the deed,” Brontosaurus said. “He was a heavy gunner like myself, after all. It’s only right that I, one of his own, erase him.”

“We’ve definitely degenerated if we’re fighting amongst ourselves about who gets the ‘honor’ of killing a former team member,” Crusher said.

“Former being the key word,” Slate said. “He’s no longer part of our team. He’s a traitor. He hunted us down, and tried to destroy us at our apartment. That’s not something I can forgive.”

“Well, that’s you,” Crusher said. “He might be a traitor, but he’s still a Mind Refurb. A man who was once human. And my friend. At least, that’s how I’ll always remember him. And because of that former friendship, and all the times he risked his life for me, and the rest of you, I think we should spare him, if we ever meet. I don’t think he needs to die.”

“You were the one who said she wanted to kick him in the nards…” Dunnigan commented.

“Well sure,” Crusher said. “But kicking someone in the nards is a lot different than killing that person. Because to be honest, I always kind of liked Manticore.”

“Oh ho!” Slate said. “Looks like you got some competition for your affections, Scorp!”

“Competition with a dead man isn’t something I’m worried about,” Eric said.

“Not you, too…” Crusher said.

“Like Slate said, he attacked us,” Eric told her. “And followed us all the way to this planet. He’s going to keep hunting us until we put him down, I’m afraid. If I have the opportunity to terminate his existence, I’m going to have to take it, I’m sad to say.”

“I’ll respect that decision, of course,” Crusher said. “But I won’t be happy about it. Because if I ever find him in my sight lines, I won’t squeeze the trigger.”

“What if it means saving my life?” Eric asked.

Crusher’s avatar seemed torn. But the moment faded. “Then of course I’ll do it.”

“There, there,” Bambi said. “I’m sure it will never come to that.”

“I’m not so sure,” Crusher said.

Neither was Eric, but he wasn’t going to say anything.

The group continued in silence for a few kilometers, with the airships shadowing them in the distance. Eric kept an eye on his overhead map, and watched as the team slowly closed with the mountain range. For a while he hoped alien reinforcements wouldn’t arrive before the team reached the mountains.

Soon the range was very near. Eric switched his gaze from the overhead map to the forest ahead, changing to the point of view of one of Eagleeye’s scouts. He waited for the trees to give way to the shoulders of the closest mountain.

But no such thing transpired. Instead, as the Bolt Eaters neared the edge of the forest, Eric finally understood why the pursuing airships had not yet attacked.

Between the trees ahead, Sloths and other alien robots were positioned in a long line, their thermal signatures blocking all access forward. Above them, the outlines of airships and Dragonworms floated above the treetops.

“Uh, you know that feeling you get when you eat an entire pack of Oreo cookies, and suddenly have to take a shit?” Mickey asked.

“Actually, no,” Slate said. “Dude, who does that?”

Eric dismissed the feed from the scout, and glanced over his shoulder, seeking a retreat. The two airships that had mirrored them all that time repositioned, moving directly behind the group. Those airships dropped more units—Sloths and walkers—into the forest behind them. The craft also opened panels to release more Dragonworms.

The Bolt Eaters were thoroughly surrounded.

“Guess we’re not going to be escaping the nuke after all,” Traps said.

21

Eric deployed his shield, and slid behind one of the tree trunks.

The other mechs did the same, without a word from Marlborough. Nearby, Traps and Hicks released their charge cables, freeing themselves from Eagleeye and Slate. Eagleeye recalled his scouts and stowed them in his storage compartment.

Eric held his shield behind him, to protect against attacks from behind, while leaning past the edge of the tree to fire at the units lying in wait ahead. He targeted a Sloth, and struck an energy shield immediately.

“Well, that’s no good,” Eric commented. He swung the weapon around behind him, toward the Dragonworms launched by the airships, and unleashed an energy bolt. He struck the head of one of the bioweapons, and it managed to launch a net at him before it died.

Eric flung himself to the ground and the tree trunk behind him became enveloped by that sticky net.

“We’re thoroughly pinned,” Slate said. He fired at another incoming Dragonworm. Meanwhile, the Sloths remained back, utilizing their plasma weapons to keep the platoon members on their feet.

Eric’s shield took a blow, and he crawled behind a thick shrub for cover.

“They could keep us here for hours, or at least until they drain our batteries,” Dickson commented.

“That’s probably their strategy,” Marlborough said. “They’ll know all about our power cells, thanks to Manticore.”

Eric glanced at the trees above.

“Maybe there’s another way out of this,” Eric said.

“What do you mean?” Dickson said.

“The trees,” Eric said.

“The trees?” Slate said. “What are you talking about, bitch?”

“We climb, stick to the treetops,” Eric said. “Pass right over the enemy units. The lower branches will protect us from the troops on the forest floor, the upper boughs from the airships, and Dragonworms.”

“The trees are too far apart,” Marlborough said. “And don’t provide a seamless canopy.”

“Yes, but they’re close enough to reach by jumping,” Eric said.

“The branches will break,” Brontosaurus said.

“No, the lower boughs will hold our weight, even when we jump,” Eric said. “It’s the upper branches we’d have to worry about. But we won’t be bringing ourselves that high.”

Plasma and energy bolts were exchanged on both sides.

“It’s worth a try,” Marlborough said after some time. “To the trees, Bolt Eaters!”

Eric threw himself upright, and launched his Devastator toward the closest tree. He hit the bark, and began to climb; his magnetic mounts were useless, of course, so he had to use his brute strength to crunch his fingers and toes through the bark to create handholds and footholds.

He had to pause halfway when he became the focus of enemy fire, his mech exposed to a group of Sloths across from his position. He swung his shield into place to protect his body, and because of that, couldn’t climb. Not with any sort of efficiency, anyway: he could still climb one-handed, but it was slow going, and his climbing arm would be exposed.

His shield was already littered with blast holes, and new ones began to form as he watched.

“Guys, could use some covering fire here,” Eric said.

Bambi, Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Frogger, located at various heights on nearby trees, began unleashing suppressive bolts at the group. Their shields flashed into existence, protecting the Sloths, but the diversion had its intended effect, as most of the Sloths targeted the other Bolt Eaters in question.

Eric quickly clambered upward with one hand, and when he was out of view, folded his shield away to continue climbing with both hands.

He paused along the way to provide covering fire for other mechs that likewise became exposed, and in a short time he obtained the lower branches of the tree. He pulled himself onto the thick wooden shafts, which were easily big enough to hold his Devastator, and he hurried out toward the thinner peripheries, heading in the direction of the mountain, and the robotic attackers.

The branch underneath him began to bend considerably.

Maybe the trees won’t be able to hold our weight after all…

But the platoon had to try.

Eric had to try.

He glanced at the closest tree ahead. He wasn’t going to make it, not unless he made a running leap.

He retreated several paces and then dashed forward. As the branch bent underneath him, he vaulted from the surface. The limb sprung back into place as he left it, and he arced across to the boughs of the next closest tree.

He fell short of the target branch, but managed to grab onto it with his arms. The branch bent way down, but didn’t break.

Energy bolts came at him as he pulled himself up, and missed. He hurried forward along the branch, and sliced through a Dragonworm that swooped low to attack him.

Protected by the overhead boughs from targeting by the airships, he made his way toward the main trunk, hauled himself around it, and continued toward the perimeter once more. He switched to a run, leaped off, and landed on the outermost branches of the adjacent tree.

Eric continued forward in that manner, as did the other Bolt Eaters.

“Why do I feel like a circus monkey?” Eagleeye said.

“That’s because you are one,” Slate quipped.

The airships began to open fire into the boughs, hoping for a lucky hit, and Eric and the others had to contend with random bolts piercing the leaves. Sometimes a mech was hit: actuators were damaged, and arms disabled, but so far none of the impacts were fatal.

“Why do I get the feeling they’re toying with us?” Traps said.

“They still want to capture us after all this time,” Hicks said.

“Or maybe we’re just lucky,” Crusher said.

“I wanna get lucky with you, that’s for sure!” Slate said.

The branches occasionally broke so that the team members plunged to the forest floor; however, they quickly clambered onto the trunks and back into the trees while their companions offered covering fire. Thankfully none of the branches failed while they were passing over the main line of enemy units that blocked the path to the mountains.

When they were past that main line, the team members began to fire downward to keep the tangos pinned in place, and proceeded forward until they had put fifty meters between themselves and the enemy.

“Down, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough ordered at that point.

The platoon members quickly clambered down and proceeded toward the eaves of the forest ahead. They held their ballistic shields behind them against the Banthar attacks. Thankfully, up ahead, no more alien units were waiting to ambush them.

But as soon as the Bolt Eaters emerged, airships began to open fire from above. They also dropped Sloth units. And deployed more Dragonworms.

“This way!” Marlborough said.

A virtual path appeared in green on Eric’s HUD, toward a cave that was outlined with similar digital augmentation.

Eric held his shield forward, and fought his way through the thermal signatures of the Sloths and Dragonworms, liberally utilizing his Wolverine blades against the former, and his energy cannon the latter. Sometimes he bashed tangos out of the way with his shield so that another Bolt Eater could take them down.

He burst through the alien resistance, and made a final push toward the cave. More tangos dropped down to intercept him, but he struck them down. Nets came in at him from Dragonworms, and he evaded them, or sliced them in two. Finally he reached the cave, and dove inside after Slate.

“Ha! I win!” Slate said.

“Didn’t know it was a competition,” Brontosaurus commented.

“Everything in life is a competition, dude!” Slate said. “Those who fail just don’t realize that they’re in the game.”

Eric activated his LIDAR because it was pitch black in there. He considered turning on his headlamp as well, but the LIDAR had a far greater range than the light cones the lamps produced.

“Forward!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric was already advancing. The cave was extensive, its smooth cylindrical surfaces big enough to fit three Devastators abreast, and three more stacked from floor to ceiling.

He held his ballistic shield behind him to protect against the continual assault of their pursuers.

“Hey Traps, how about deploying that energy shield of yours!” Hicks said.

“Died a long time ago!” Traps said.

“Hey Tread, did you ever figure out a way to repair your black hole cannon?” Mickey asked. “Because now would certainly be a good time to use it.”

“Nope, sorry,” Tread said. “I honestly don’t think it can be repaired.”

Eric continued forward, following Slate deeper into the tunnel. The plasma bolt attacks picked up from behind, and Eric and the others returned fire as they ran.

The tunnel abruptly branched to the right and left.

“Continue to the right!” Marlborough said.

Eric and the others rounded the bend, momentarily moving out of the line of sight of the attackers. But the attack picked up a moment later.

Eric heard a clicking sound coming from down the tunnel. It grew in volume.

“I think we got some Snagglebeasts incoming…” Slate said.

That clicking grew louder and louder, sounding like a hundred cicadas shrilling into the night.

Sure enough, a moment later a moving wall appeared up ahead. It was bearing down straight for the Bolt Eaters.

Eric activated his headlamps and saw the seething, tumbling mass of entities.

“Flatten yourselves!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric and the others dropped to the floor as the wall smashed over them. Eric held his ballistic shield over his back for protection.

The weight lifted, and he scrambled upright. Around him, several of the Snagglebeasts lay scattered across the cave floor: to Eric, they still appeared as giant flying chipmunks with sucker mouths.

“Forward!” Marlborough said. “Let’s use this!”

Eric glanced at his rear view camera feed. The wall was still proceeding down the cave, toward the Banthar tangos. That would hold them up for some time, especially if the Banthar units attempted to offer any resistance.

Eric hurried after the others. They sliced at any Snagglebeasts that were in their path, disemboweling them along the way. Some of the creatures managed to get airborne, and the platoon members cut them out of the air. The team took the first righthand branch that presented itself, and then the next leftmost. The clicking sound had faded behind them, as did the clangs of their pursuers.

“You know, mates, I think we might have actually gotten away,” Dunnigan said.

“Not yet,” Marlborough said. “They’ll send termites through next to look for us. I want to be long gone before they arrive.”

The party continued forward in silence, keeping up their fast pace. Eric deactivated his headlamps, and his LIDAR, to save power. Eagleeye sent his repurposed drones forward to act as scouts, and shared the LIDAR feed from the units with the rest of the team, allowing them to navigate via the digital wireframes that augmented their HUDs.

“If we stay here, could we escape the nuclear firestorm?” Hicks asked.

“Doubt it,” Bambi replied. “The heat will flow through the openings… the rocks will amplify it, and it’ll become an oven in here. We’ll melt.”

“You are a bearer of wonderful news, as always,” Hicks said.

The platoon passed a side passage, and continued forward. A rising clicking sound came from the passage behind them.

“You hear that?” Tread said.

“Gotta be a second swarm of Snagglebeasts,” Hicks commented. “Just our luck!”

“Hurry forward!” Marlborough said. “The scouts have picked up an intersection ahead. We’re taking the right branch!”

“How do we know they won’t follow?” Hicks said.

“That branch is smaller than the main passage,” Marlborough said. “So far, the Snagglebeasts have never chosen a smaller passage when given the choice of a bigger one. Check your logs!”

“I believe you!” Hicks said.

The Bolt Eaters dashed forward and took the rightmost portion of the intersection just in time.

Meanwhile, behind them the wall of Snagglebeasts swept past. Some of the entities still overflowed into the right branch, and Eric and the others had to beat them away as they retreated. Soon there were none left to attack, and the overwhelming clicking produced by the living wall faded into the distance.

They wandered for an hour in those caves. Whenever crossroads or side passages presented themselves, Marlborough chose a course that he thought would lead through the mountains, based on the map data the platoon had recorded of the external range, and the direction indicated by their accelerometers.

Sure enough, at the end of that hour, the tunnel ahead opened into the night.

“We did it,” Mickey said.

“Eagleeye, send the scouts through,” Marlborough ordered.

Eagleeye dispatched the scouts.

“It’s clear out there,” Eagleeye said. “We have ourselves a clear blue sky. No sign of any tangos.”

“I almost wish there was a snowstorm,” Brontosaurus commented. “It would make our getaway easier.”

“You can’t always rely on nature to save our asses,” Traps said.

“No, I suppose not,” Brontosaurus said.

The team members emerged in a defensive cigar formation and confirmed the area was clear. To the south, barren plains led away to the horizon. The team would be exposed out there.

“Damn it, I never thought I’d miss a forest as much as I do now,” Traps commented.

“Look to the east,” Crusher said.

Eric did so. On the eastern horizon, he spotted the thermal signatures of airships roaming above the mountain range, patrols that were no doubt searching for the Bolt Eaters.

“We keep to the shoulder of the mountain for now,” Marlborough said. “As soon as the airships vanish from view, we’ll head south across the plains.”

And so the Bolt Eaters trudged west along the shoulder of the mountain, away from the Banthar patrols.

Eric glanced at the ticking clock. The nuke would go off four hours from now. He was beginning to think that they might actually make it, if they could keep up the pace.

Don’t jinx it, he told himself. Because he knew anything could happen between now and then.

Anything.

We’ll just have to keep ourselves on our highest alert. And keep hoping.

22

In half an hour, the airships vanished over the eastern horizon. In another half hour, Eric and the other Bolt Eaters turned southwest and headed away from the mountains across the plains, as instructed by Marlborough. Southwest, because they wanted to continue putting distance between themselves and the Banthar patrols, while making their way back toward where the platoon believed the rift site was located.

The night sky remained clear overhead, and no snowstorms swept the area. Eric had hoped one would develop, but no such luck.

“You told us we’d return home before,” Bambi said at one point during the southwest march, on a private line she shared with Crusher and Eric. “You were so confident. But I’m not so sure anymore. Home. It’s almost an abstract concept at this point. Something that exists only in our minds, but has no physical manifestation.”

“Maybe we won’t ever get home,” Eric agreed. “Maybe I was wrong. But didn’t we conclude that it didn’t matter, as long as we had VR?”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bambi said. “Because while we’re here, we’ll always have to watch our backs. Our Accomps could pull us out of VR at any time, and we’ll have to fight for our lives against the latest Banthar threat. I don’t want to live out the rest of my life in an alien wasteland.”

“We might have no choice, at this point,” Crusher said. “Arnold might never open another rift to this planet, even if we successfully wipe out the colony with our nuke.”

“No, he’ll send reinforcements at some point,” Eric said. “I know he will. The Brass won’t leave this planet unexplored. Not if they don’t hear back from us. Arnold promised to send our mind clones looking for us, remember?”

“Given our current thermal emissions, our clones would be more likely to shoot us down than rescue us,” Bambi said. “Well, at least yours. Bambi and I are the only ones with proper emissions, for now.”

“Wouldn’t that be funny,” Crusher said. “Dying at the hands of his own clone.”

“That wouldn’t be funny at all,” Eric said.

Crusher’s avatar shrugged. “You’re the only Original out of all of us who hasn’t died yet. Maybe it’s time.”

“Not if I can help it,” Eric said.

Crusher smiled. “Sorry. That didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to. I don’t want you to fall. I don’t want any of us to.”

“And we won’t,” Eric said. “We just have to get through the next three hours.”

The next two hours passed without incident. They reached a forest with an hour to go before detonation. The eaves were free of snow.

It was the same forest they had left behind previously, or at least, seemed to be, because the trees were the usual tall, hexagonal-leafed affairs, whose thick, grid-like boughs overlapped to form a canopy that blotted out the stars. There was no way to confirm it for certain, of course, thanks to the jump in position caused by their previous airship ride. It could be the same forest, or an entirely different one; either way, the map data simply couldn’t correlate their positions.

“Pick up the pace, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough said. “As it stands, we’ll still be within the firestorm radius when the nuke detonates.”

“But on the edges,” Hicks said.

“Even so, I’d rather be clear, if possible,” Marlborough said.

The team increased their pace, as much as was possible given the damage some of the units had taken, and the battery levels of other units.

Eagleeye had his scouts switch to LIDAR mode to properly map out the path ahead of the platoon.

Even so, Eric kept an eye on the forest around him as he marched, wary of ambushers.

But no attacks came so that when only ten minutes remained to detonation, Eric found himself watching the countdown more than the forest around him.

“We’re still going to be within the firestorm radius,” Bambi said. “But just barely.”

“I know,” Marlborough said. “I’m hoping the temperature won’t be too bad along the peripheries of the storm.”

“One minute to go!” Slate announced at the appropriate time.

“Keep moving!” Marlborough said.

“Ten seconds!” Slate said fifty seconds later.

“Keep running!” Marlborough said.

Eric watched as the countdown hit zero.

If the sky wasn’t canopied, he would have been expecting to see the horizon light up to the north, but as it was, he saw and felt nothing. The ground didn’t even shake.

Of course not, they were too far away.

The platoon ran on for the next several minutes.

And then Eric saw the change in light levels he was expecting.

It came from behind: a red glow emanated from the forest behind the platoon.

“Flames incoming!” Brontosaurus announced.

“Oh, shit,” Dunnigan said.

“Take cover!” Marlborough said.

Eric dove behind a nearby trunk, and huddled with Bambi and Crusher.

“I’m afraid,” Bambi said.

“Don’t be,” Eric said. “I’m here with you both.”

“Let’s switch to VR, make love one last time,” Crusher said.

“No,” Eric said. “If I’m going to die here, I want to witness the end.”

And so he remained in the real world, waiting for the flames of hell to sweep over him.

He didn’t have long to wait.

In moments he was surrounded by a fiery conflagration. He heard what sounded like the roar of a jumbo jet. He didn’t recognize the forest: everything burned a bright red and orange, though engulfed objects, including himself, were pitch black. The undergrowth curled away and disintegrated, the tree trunks withered beneath the hungry flames, and the boughs overhead dissolved.

“Dee, how are we doing on external temperature,” Eric asked.

“External temperature is twelve hundred degrees Kelvin,” Dee said. “Within acceptable parameters. Barely.”

“I’m melting!” Traps said.

“No you’re not,” Dunnigan said. “Relax, dude. Don’t expend any unnecessary power.”

That was a good idea. Eric shut down almost everything save for his external cameras: basically anything that might cause him to vent excess heat.

The bright red glow around them remained in place for an hour, and then, all at once, the flames began to die, and soon he was left standing in a burned out forest. He activated his headlamp to examine the burnt shells of trees beside him. Several had been reduced to stumps or fallen to burn away on the ground, while others remained standing, cinders reduced to half their former size. Other headlamps activated around him as the other Bolt Eaters examined their surroundings.

Eric almost couldn’t believe it. They were caught in the periphery of the firestorm, but while it was severe enough to destroy the trees, it wasn’t enough to melt their units.

It seemed almost too good to be true.

“We survived,” Frogger said. “We nuked a Banthar colony, and lived to tell the tale.”

“Bitches, we’re going to be entertaining the grandkids for years to come with this story!” Slate said.

“Um, we can’t have kids,” Eagleeye said.

“Fuck that,” Slate said. “I’m going to buy little androids and install developmental AIs in them. Or maybe I’ll just get a mind dump done on some little kid.”

“That’s illegal,” Eagleeye said.

“Never tell me something’s illegal,” Slate said. “You just make me want to do it even more.”

“We did it, actually did it,” Mickey said, standing in his Devastator nearby. “And survived.”

“Didn’t Frogger just say that?” Traps asked.

“Of course we survived, bitches,” Slate replied. “That’s what we do!”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could sure use some repairs,” Hicks said. “Anyone have any spare alien parts?”

And then Hicks was struck by an alien spear. It slammed into his chest assembly, and electrical sparks spiraled up and down his entire body.

Eric spun to the apparent source of the attacker, and saw that Crusher had raised her arm in his direction. She swiveled to the side, and launched another spear, disabling Marlborough.

Eric tackled her. The overheated servomotors of his Devastator responded far more slowly than he would have liked. “The hell you doing?”

She wrestled with him. Meanwhile, Bambi threw herself at Brontosaurus.

“Attack!” Slate announced.

As Eric fought with Crusher, he spotted an airship swooping down from overhead. M-54 tanks, Savage robots, and Ravager mechs dropped down, along with alien units such as Sloths and walkers. Dragonworms also emerged, and the small spherical scouts. The latter launched silk nets liberally at the platoon.

Because their servomotors were still recovering from the intense heat, the Bolt Eaters couldn’t properly fight back, and in moments all of them were restrained by the sticky nets. Crusher released Eric, and before he could get up, a Dragonworm pinned him with silk from its tail.

One of the Ravagers approached. It carried several of the alien spears in one of its large hands.

Crusher and Bambi strode to the mech’s side.

“Manticore,” Eric said.

“Well hello, Scorpion,” Manticore said. “I hope the ladies entertained you.”

“What did you do to them?” Eric asked.

“Before your ‘rescue,’ the Essential installed a couple of Trojans when they were in our custody,” Manticore said. “It was simply a matter of waiting for the most opportune time to trigger the code and take control.”

“You’re too late,” Eric said. “We’ve won. We’ve nuked the Banthar colony.”

“Colony?” Manticore seemed confused. “This isn’t just some Banthar Colony. This is Banthar Prime. Their homeworld.”

Eric was speechless, as were the others.

“Well, that would explain why this bitch-ass mission was so damn hard,” Slate finally said.

“Yes,” Manticore said. “And the Essential remains untouched by your attack.”

“What the hell is this Essential?” Dickson asked.

“The Banthar main AI, of course,” Manticore said. “It pervades all essential systems of this planet, hence the name. Not only does it provide for the Banthar, it also rules them.”

“Why the hell would they let an AI rule them?” Slate said. “That’s got to be the worst decision ever.”

“Perhaps, but who are we to judge the being an alien race chooses to make their leader?” Manticore said. “It cannot age, and therefore cannot die. It will never change its mind over a policy decision. And lastly, it will be ruthless in war.

“The Essential does not exist solely in the metropolis you destroyed, but across all cities planet-wide. You quenched ten million Banthar lives with your nuclear warhead, but otherwise caused no damage to the Essential’s infrastructure. None whatsoever. Did you know, memory-limited clones of the Essential operate the various war machines you have encountered up until this point? So in essence, you’ve been fighting the same single entity all this time. Even during the invasion on Earth.”

“I suppose the so-called Essential is pissed about our little nuke attack…” Slate said.

“Not exactly,” Manticore said. “The Essential doesn’t get pissed off. That’s a response reserved for humans, and Mind Refurbs. No, the Essential cares more about the loss in resources that came with the destruction of the city. It is now more determined than ever to conquer Earth, if only to prevent similar resource losses from taking place again.”

“Wait,” Eric said. “Presumably the Essential had access to the memories of Bambi and Crusher while they were in custody. It would have known our plan. Why let us even detonate the nuke in the first place? Or if you couldn’t stop it, why not relocate it far away from the city?”

“There was only time to inject the Trojan into the two of them, not to perform complete memory dumps,” Manticore said. “I assure you, if the Essential had known about it, the nuke would have been disabled.”

“But you knew though, didn’t you?” Eric said. “You had access to our specs before we launched. You would have known that Bambi carried a nuke, and when the Banthar captured her, the portion of her body containing that nuke was absent. But you didn’t tell the Essential. You wanted it to detonate. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Manticore didn’t answer. Instead, he surveyed the fallen Bolt Eaters for several moments, as if in disdain. And then he finally said: “It’s now time for you to meet the Essential.”

Because of his response, Eric was forced to conclude that Manticore didn't know about the nuke after all. Maybe the traitor hadn't had complete access to the specs of all their units. Or if he had, Manticore hadn’t been aware that the Crab contained a nuclear warhead. So there wasn't really any hope for him after all...

Manticore walked up to Eric and plunged one of the alien spears through the chest piece of his Devastator, just above the AI core.

Sparks of electricity enveloped him, and Eric felt an incredible pain spread throughout his body; before he could shut down his pain sense, consciousness mercifully faded.

23

Eric floated in darkness.

Where am I? he said. Or rather thought, because he had no mouth.

“Intermedial,” Dee’s soothing voice said into the empty night.

Loading stage.

“That’s right,” Dee said.

What happened? Do you know where Manticore has taken us?

“Negative,” Dee said. “The accelerometer only went online a few moments ago. The data is inconclusive.”

Great.

He felt like he should be afraid, or at the very least apprehensive, but emotions were completely absent at the moment. He realized that the limbic subroutines related to emotions probably had not loaded yet.

I hope Bambi and Crusher are all right.

“I hope this, too,” Dee said.

Er, that thought was supposed to be private. It wasn’t meant for you.

“Sorry,” Dee said. “Would you like me to deactivate until loading is complete?”

No. I could use the company, I think. I’m not sure I’ll like what’s coming.

After what seemed an eternity, all of his systems came online, and Eric’s cameras finally activated.

He was lying down on a table. He couldn’t move. He thought he was still inside his Devastator body, but he couldn’t be entirely sure.

Dee, why can’t I move?

“Invasive subroutines detected,” his Accomp said. “Access to motor subroutines currently disabled.”

So what are you saying, I have complete conscious awareness, but I’m no longer in control of my body?

“Essentially, yes,” Dee replied. “Containment Code has been placed around your mind.”

Containment Code. No.

“I'm afraid so,” Dee said. “I’m sorry.”

We have to break free. Try all known back doors.

“I already did,” Dee said. “Whoever created this code has kept up with the latest patches released on Earth. There’s no obvious means of breaking free. Not from this.”

It had to be Manticore.

Eric would have slumped if he weren’t lying down, and had access to his motor controls.

“Ah, you are awake,” another voice spoke in his head. It was male. It reminded him a little of Manticore’s, but deeper, with a slight machinelike resonance, as if the words were spoken through the metal grill of speakers.

Who are you?

“The Essential,” the voice said. “We will reforge you. Turn you into the weapons of mass destruction you were meant to be.” Eric sat up, though not of his own volition. He was in a vast chamber, surrounded by those spherical, floating machines with the long arms topped in pincers. They were attaching muzzles and turrets to his body.

His head turned to the left, and then to the right. On either side of him were the mechs of the other Bolt Eaters, lying on large tables. Floating machines also augmented their weapons.

“This is your new reality,” the Essential said. Or at least, the clone of the Essential that had been placed in his mind. “The destruction of humankind is now your unending mission. You may think of it as reparation for what you did twenty years ago. All actions have repercussions, sometimes decades later. This is yours.”

His torso rotated, revealing rank upon rank of Devastator mechs, lined up in neat rows on tables behind him. “Witness: the clones of yourself, and your companions. The army that you will lead in the devastation of your homeworld, the army that will help terraform your planet into the weapons factory it was meant to be.”

Eric’s body stood up and marched between the machines. His movements were stiff and slightly unbalanced, as if he was unused to this body.

He reached the far side of the cavernous compartment. Ribbed, concave metal walls lay in front of him. Eric strode through an opening.

He stood on a balcony overlooking a city of silos. Snail-like Banthar riding floating disks filled the air above those silos as far as the eye could see. Similar occupied disks covered the streets below, and the balconies of the nearby buildings.

Eric still had no control over his movements, or what he said next. “The inhabitants of Banthar Prime are here to send us off. Watch their unrestrained joy when I announce the imminent departure of the mothership.”

His mech emitted a series of screeches, and when the alien oratory ended, similar noises were returned a thousandfold by the floating aliens in front of him. There were so many screeches, it sounded like a hundred freight trains were headed directly for Eric.

He thought it must be cheering.

Yes, the Essential had told him to observe their unrestrained joy. The Banthar throng was cheering the coming destruction of Earth.

At Eric’s hands.

To be continued...

I don’t like leaving readers hanging, which is why I’ve decided to publish all three full length novels in the trilogy at the same time. That’s right, book three is available now (or will be shortly). Find out what happens next without having to wait.

Continue the adventures in Redeemed (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 3)

Afterword

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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., Karen J, Jeremy G., Doug B., Jenny O., Amy B., Bryan O., Gary F., Lezza, Noel, Anton, Spencer, Norman, Trudi, Corey, Erol, Terje, David, Charles, Walter, Lisa, Ramon, Chris, Scott, Michael, Chris, Bob, Jim, Maureen, Zane, Chuck, Shayne, Anna, Dave, Roger, Nick, Gerry, Charles, Annie, Patrick, Mike, Jeff, Lisa, Jason, Bryant, Janna, Tom, Jerry, Chris, Jim, Brandon, Kathy, Norm, Jonathan, Derek, Shawn, Judi, Eric, Rick, Bryan, Barry, Sherman, Jim, Bob, Ralph, Darren, Michael, Chris, Michael, Julie, Glenn, Rickie, Rhonda, Neil, Claude, Ski, Joe, Paul, Larry, John, Norma, Jeff, David, Brennan, Phyllis, Robert, Darren, Daniel, Montzalee, Robert, Dave, Diane, Peter, Skip, Louise, Dave, Brent, Erin, Paul, Jeremy, Dan, Garland, Sharon, Dave, Pat, Nathan, Max, Martin, Greg, David, Myles, Nancy, Ed, David, Karen, Becky, Jacob, Ben, Don, Carl, Gene, Bob, Luke, Teri, Robine, Gerald, Lee, Rich, Ken, Daniel, Chris, Al, Andy, Tim, Robert, Fred, David, Mitch, Don, Tony, Dian, Tony, John, Sandy, James, David, Pat, Gary, Jean, Bryan, William, Roy, Dave, Vincent, Tim, Richard, Kevin, George, Andrew, John, Richard, Robin, Sue, Mark, Jerry, Rodger, Rob, Byron, Ty, Mike, Gerry, Steve, Benjamin, Anna, Keith, Jeff, Josh, Herb, Bev, Simon, John, David, Greg, Larry, Timothy, Tony, Ian, Niraj, Maureen, Jim, Len, Bryan, Todd, Maria, Angela, Gerhard, Renee, Pete, Hemantkumar, Tim, Joseph, Will, David, Suzanne, Steve, Derek, Valerie, Laurence, James, Andy, Mark, Tarzy, Christina, Rick, Mike, Paula, Tim, Jim, Gal, Anthony, Ron, Dietrich, Mindy, Ben, Steve, Allen, Paddy & Penny, Troy, Marti, Herb, Jim, David, Alan, Leslie, Chuck, Dan, Perry, Chris, Rich, Rod, Trevor, Rick, Michael, Tim, Mark, Alex, John, William, Doug, Tony, David, Sam, Derek, John, Jay, Tom, Bryant, Larry, Anjanette, Gary, Travis, Jennifer, Henry, Drew, Michelle, Bob, Gregg, Billy, Jack, Lance, Sandra, Libby, Jonathan, Karl, Bruce, Clay, Gary, Sarge, Andrew, Deborah, Steve, and Curtis.

Without you all, this novel would have typos, continuity errors, and excessive lapses in realism. Thank you for helping me make this the best novel possible, and thank you for leaving the early reviews that help new readers find my books.

And of course I’d be remiss if I didn't thank my mother, father, and brothers, whose wisdom and insights have always guided me through the dark paths at the edge of the world.

— Isaac Hooke

Continue the adventures in Redeemed (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 3)