ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2) (27 page)

I ended the song.

Queequeg abruptly crouched, baring his teeth and growling.

I wondered if he thought I’d been devoured by the mech or something.

“Queequeg, it’s me,” I said.

The animal perked up immediately when he heard my voice, and his ears pricked. But then he growled again.

“It’s all right Queequeg,” I said soothingly. “It’s me. Shaw.” I pointed slowly at myself. “Shaw.” I’d done this before when I’d first trained the animal all those months ago. He had to recognize the word and the gesture. He had to.

Either Queequeg had indeed understood me, or he was too confused to do anything other than cock his head and stare at the ATLAS 5.

I slowly knelt to one knee, and held out an open palm.

“Come,” I said, gently. “Come.”

Queequeg approached warily. When he reached my hand, he tentatively licked the outer edge of my giant finger.

“That’s a good boy.” I carefully reached behind his neck, and scratched him with said finger.

“So you have obtained your mech,” Fan said from where I’d left him beside the wall.

Queequeg swung toward Fan and growled.

The SK frowned, but I could see the alarm in his eyes. He actually feared the hybear more than the ATLAS. Amazing.

“I got my mech.” I agreed, slowly pulling my hand away from Queequeg.

“Do you trust me now?” Fan said.

I glanced at the SK. He seemed so small and insignificant beside me. Less than a child. “Not really. But it looks like you get to keep your main cylinder after all.”

He smiled sardonically. “Why, thank you, oh great mech pilot. But what about my rifle?”

“What about it?”

Fan crossed his arms. “You said you would give it back. When we reached the ATLAS.”

“No I didn’t. Don’t put words in my mouth. The deal was, you’d get to keep your main oxygen cylinder.”

Fan sighed profusely. “You are a crafty one, Shaw Chopra of the UC Navy. Let us return to my oxygen extractor, then. With your mech, we can move the device easily. We can take it with us to the next Forma chimney, where I will start work on your extractor.”

I regarded him crossly, though of course he couldn’t see my expression. “So you’re dictating my actions now? You realize I’m the one up in the ATLAS 5, don’t you?” Though what he said wasn’t a bad idea. Taking his extractor to the next Forma pipe would save us a lot of time.

“I only speak the truth, Shaw Chopra. We must do this. The oxygen tanks in your ATLAS will not last forever.”

“They won’t,” I conceded.

“See? You need me. Without me, no extractor. No extractor, no oxygen. Not in the long run.”

I wondered once again how much I could truly trust him. I considered abandoning him right there. That was probably the best move. But my conscience wouldn’t let me.

Besides, he was right. If I wanted to survive on this world in the long run, I still needed him to build me an oxygen extractor.

He had wanted to stick together before. And I could see why he might want that even more now. With a mech at his side, he’d never have to fear the hybears or beasts of this world ever again.

Maybe he planned to steal my ATLAS mech somehow. I wished him luck on that front, given how hard it had been for me to take control of Battlehawk in the first place, and I was actually UC.

I stood to my full height, which had the unintended side effect of frightening Queequeg—my pet quickly moved to the defile wall, behind Fan, like he was using the SK as a shield.

I edged past the two of them and continued forward at a comfortable pace, heading to the defile entrance. In moments I emerged into the valley beyond.

I turned around.

Fan was right behind me, but Queequeg kept his distance.

“Come on, Queequeg,” I said.

Queequeg approached to within five meters, but refused to come any closer. That was probably for the best, because I didn’t want to accidentally step on him—as an animal, Queequeg didn’t have any means of transmitting his position to my helmet aReal, so I had to keep track of him by sight.

“How fast can you travel in that?” Fan said.

“Fast. You won’t be able to match my speed. But here, let me show you a little UC innovation. Something we add to all our mechs.”

I scooped him up.

“Put me down!” Fan protested.

I set him on my back, just behind my head, in the provided passenger seat.

“Impressive.” Fan sounded sarcastic. “But I believe the Sino-Koreans employ this so-called innovation in our mechs as well.”

“Buckle up and enjoy the ride.” I moved forward, feeling confident enough to switch to a moderate lope. My balance remained stable. So far so good.

Queequeg easily kept pace, though he gave me a wide berth, staying twenty meters to my right.

“Well, Queequeg?” I said. “Think you can keep up?”

I upticked my speed, broke into an all-out sprint—

And promptly fell flat on my face. I skidded across the surface, plowing a long furrow into the shale.

Fan swore in Korean-Chinese behind me.

I supposed I had some more practicing to do.

CHAPTER NINE

Rade

T
he MOTH Delivery Vehicle rendezvoused with the SK shuttle about twenty klicks northeast of the city, and together the two vessels approached the distant skyscrapers. We were two platoons from disparate space-faring nations of Earth. Nations ofttimes enemies, brought together by a common threat.

This should prove interesting.

The drop had been easy this time, compared to the first. The
Gerald R. Ford
had been well out of range of the point defense of the Skull Ship, and we faced no opposition from any other vessels, thanks in part to the valiant captains and crews who had refused to allow their starships to be taken, choosing to detonate their reactor cores over capture. Heroes. All of them.

The drop vehicles hugged the surface of the moon on approach, because Shangde City was defended by possessed ATLAS mechs and automated air defense weapons. The SK convoy that had breached the city during Operation Crimson Pipeline had managed to cripple the air defenses along the northeasternmost extremities, and it was from that vector we approached.

Clamped in against the bulkheads of the delivery vehicle, the members of Alfa platoon sat opposite and facing one another.

“I don’t trust them,” Hijak said. The MOTH formerly known as Dyson was seated beside me. I decided to start referring to him by his callsign in my head, otherwise a world of confusion awaited me. Tahoe was the only one I continued to call by his real name. He’d gone through MOTH training with me, and he deserved that honor.

Hijak was staring opposite him at the portal above Bender’s head. I followed his gaze, and saw the SK shuttle outside, which shadowed our movements some distance starboard.

“None of us trust them,” Facehopper said. “But we have a job to do. And we’re going to do it.”

“For once I have to agree with Hijak,” Lui said. “I don’t like this. It stinks of subterfuge. The SKs are going to betray us the first chance they get.”

Skullcracker flashed a big grin, and the skull tattooed into his face matched the fierce smile. “If they betray us, I’ll be introducing the SK platoon to a little friend of mine.” He patted the barrel of his heavy gun.

“I like my friend better,” Fret said, shifting the Carl Gustav on his shoulder.

Ghost chuckled. “True artists don’t rely on recoilless rifles or heavy guns. That’s like throwing a bucket of paint on a blank canvas. Sure, sometimes you’ll create something half-resembling art, but for the most part, all you’ll get is a mess of collateral damage.” The albino warrior hefted his sniper rifle. “Now this, on the other hand, is the round brush of the true artist. With it, I can paint the battle space with utmost precision and care, taking out a target five klicks away without harming a hair on the civilians beside him.”

Fret smirked. “What about the civilian standing behind the target who gets battered by the somersaulting body?”

“Never happen,” Trace interceded. “Nine times out of ten, anyone lounging near a target is a target themselves.”

“And nine times out of ten, statistics are made up on the spot,” Fret said.

“Okay, enough already,” Bender said. “I get the point, bitches.”

“Who are you calling a bitch, bitch?” Trace said.

“Sniping sucks,” Fret said. “When I have fifty targets all bunched up and running toward me, I’ll take a recoilless launcher over a peashooter any day.”

“I’ll take an ATLAS,” Bomb said. He’d shaved off his mohawk and was now completely bald, but he’d grown his beard out so that it was the scraggliest of all. He looked like a black Santa Claus, minus the paunch. Not that I could see much of the beard beneath his jumpsuit helmet.

“An ATLAS would be good, too,” Fret agreed.

“The suits we’re wearing now are almost ATLAS mechs,” Tahoe said. “The ATLAS 1s were body-hugging, strength-enhancing exoskeletons with face masks. No weapon attachments. No jetpacks. Basically jumpsuits. The ATLAS 2s were a streamlined, slim-downed version of the same, with jetpack attachments. Jumpsuit design branched off from the twos, and it was only when the ATLAS 3s came out that the modern mecha design emerged. The ATLAS 3 was no longer body hugging. The user resided in a cockpit at the heart of the mech, and his movements controlled the arms and legs and weapons systems.”

“Well, it’s good to know someone else took the ATLAS history class,” Facehopper said. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, since that was an actual course.

“They make you take it in Fourth Phase, now,” Hijak said.

“You don’t say?” Bomb wore a thoughtful expression. “I seem to recall taking that course. Forgot everything I learned, though. Too many shots to the head, if you know what I mean.”

“You ain’t never been shot in the head, bro,” Bender said. “Me and Fret, well, that’s a different story.”

“Me, too.” Snakeoil raised his hand sheepishly.

“Sure, Snakeoil,” Bender said. “But you ain’t suffered brain damage. Me and Fret, now . . .”

“You have brain damage?” Hijak said. “Well, that explains a lot.”

Bender’s eyes flared like embers. “You better shut it, caterpillar, because I’m this close to ripping your head off and shoving it down your throat.” He pinched his gloved thumb and forefinger so the two digits almost touched.

Hijak didn’t back down. “I’m not a caterpillar anymore, bitch.”

“That’s it.” Bender reached for the manual clamp release.

“Hold,” Chief Bourbonjack said. “Don’t you get up, Bender. Goddammit, we’re on an operation here. We don’t have time for preschool antics. You’re spec-ops. A team.” He stared at Bender a moment. “Tell me that you can work together. Tell me that you’ll be there for him. That you’ll take a bullet for him. Tell me.”

Bender gazed back defiantly, then lowered his gaze. “I’ll be there for him,” he said quietly.

“What’s that?” Chief Bourbonjack said. “Speak up, Bender.”

“I’ll be there for him,” Bender said.

“For who?”

Bender glanced at the Chief. “For Hijak.”

“Tell it to his face,” the Chief said.

Bender bit his lip, then looked at Hijak. “I’ll be there for you.”

“Tell him you’ll take a bullet for him,” the Chief said.

Now that he’d said the first part, Bender’s resolve seemed to strengthen. “I’ll take a bullet for you, Hijak.”

I could hear the conviction in his voice, and I knew he would.

“Your turn,” the Chief instructed Hijak.

“I’ll be there for you, Bender,” Hijak said. “I’ll take a bullet for you.”

“Now shake on it. Do it!”

Hijak extended a hand. Bender lifted his, too, from where he sat on the opposite side of the MDV. The two of them strained against their clamps and shook.

“Good,” the Chief said. “We go into battle as a team, we fight as a team, and we go home as a team. That’s what makes us MOTHs. When you’re out there, getting shot at from all sides, nothing matters except your team. Not your country. Not your mission. But the man beside you. Save his life, and you save your own. Remember that.”

The compartment fell into reflective silence.

“Mauler?” Facehopper said.

“Yes, sir?” Mauler was the new callsign of the other former caterpillar, Meyers, who replaced Big Dog as heavy gunner. He was a bona fide native of the UC, not an immigrant. One of those very few who actually volunteered to join the service, not because he had to, like the rest of us, but because he
wanted
to.

“Tell us why the Chief gave you that name,” Facehopper said.

Mauler glanced in the Chief’s direction, and Chief Bourbonjack inclined his head in consent.

“During the firefight,” Mauler said, “one of the enemy Centurions came at me from behind. It had no weapon, so it knocked me down. Tried to pin me with its weight. I’d dropped my rifle, so I started punching it. Again and again. Busted its head. Broke its vision sensors.”

“You should have seen the dents in the Centurion’s head.” The Chief chuckled. “When Mauler took off his gloves later, his knuckles were soaked in blood. He broke half the bones in his hands.”

“Nasty.” Skullcracker shook his head.

Facehopper grinned. “If you can get that reaction from Skullcracker, you know you’re doing something right.”

“Mauler displayed true MOTH spirit that day,” Chief Bourbonjack said.
“He didn’t give up. We do what we have to do to save our lives, and the lives of our teammates.”

The lives of our teammates
. . .

I wondered again, as I had so many times before, whether there was something I could have done to save Alejandro. I would’ve gladly broken my hand, or every bone in my body, to save him.

“Got anyone back home?” I asked Hijak, trying to distract myself. I was making an effort at putting the resentment I felt toward him behind me.

He looked at me. “No. Well, unless you count family.”

“Of course I count family.”

“I thought you meant like a girlfriend or something.” Hijak said. “Which I don’t have. But I got my parents. What about you? Girl back home?”

I smiled wanly. “No. Not anymore.”

“Broke up, huh? The service is tough. Especially for spec-ops people.”

“It is.” I glanced at Tahoe, looking to change the subject, or at least get the attention off me. “Tah— Cyclone here, has a wife and two kids back home.”

“That true?” Hijak said, turning to Tahoe. “You must seriously miss them.”

Tahoe closed his eyes, obviously annoyed. He didn’t answer.

“What did I do?” Hijak glanced at the other members of the platoon, but most of them studiously avoided his eyes.

Bender, however, was staring right at him. “You’re an insensitive, morale-leeching bitch, is what.”

“Bender . . .” Chief said.

Bender shrugged, and looked away.

“So how’d you end up in the UC?” I said to Hijak.

“Me? Parents emigrated a few months before I was born. They were too old for the draft. But they had the money to buy their way into citizenship. Did you know it only costs 500,000 bitcoins? Pony up the funds, invest in a municipal bond or UC company, create ten UC jobs, and the government assigns your family permanent residence status. Funny thing is, for all the money they had, my parents couldn’t buy me out of the draft.”

“Bet they tried, though,” I said.

“They did. First they had my records hacked. But the anti-tampering system put everything back the next day.
Then they tried to bribe the local politicians and military officials. That didn’t work either. Finally they want
ed to switch out my em
bedded ID. By that point I’d had enough. I told them to stop, because of course it wasn’t going to work. Too many checks and balances in the enlistment process, otherwise the SKs would’ve installed sleepers in our ranks years ago.”

“Who says they haven’t?” Bender joked, glancing at Lui.

“Hey, if I was an SK sleeper, I would have terminated your ass years ago,” Lui retorted.

“So what happened?” I asked Hijak.

“Well, I took my parents out to the most expensive restaurant in town and broke the news: I’d enlisted in the Navy and was shipping out to New Great Lakes the next day.”

“And you chose the spec-ops rating,” I said.

“I did. Like all of you, I chose this.” He regarded me thoughtfully. “I heard you immigrated, not because you wanted to someday become a citizen, but because you specifically wanted to join up?”

“I did.”

“Do you ever regret it?” Hijak said.

I answered without hesitation, giving him the answer that was expected of me, though inside I was full of regret. “Not for a minute. You asked me if I had anyone back home. I don’t. But the truth is, I don’t need anyone. These are my brothers now. This is the only family I’ll ever need. Right here. Right now.”

“Wooyah,” Skullcracker said.

Yeah. Wooyah.

Chief Bourbonjack gave me a searching look. Had he heard the grief in my voice? He was the only one who knew of my transfer request; was he regretting not fulfilling that request now? Was he worried I’d let him or my platoon brothers down during the mission?

I promised myself right then that I wouldn’t fail my brothers, nor allow anyone to die on this mission.

Because if I lost anyone else, it would kill me.

I forced myself to focus on the mission. The past was over and done. It wasn’t going to help the present.

I stared at the glass container roped to the deck in the middle of the MDV. Engineering had received the blueprints only hours ago and had rushed the construction. I hoped the design was up to par. Capable of holding a seven-foot-tall man, it was a rectangular, box-shaped contraption with glass making up its six faces. Steel braces reinforced the eight corners, while handholds and clip-in carabiner loops for the actual portage rounded out the container. The bulletproof gl
ass was composed of a combination of various plies of polycarbonate, PVB (polyvinyl butyral), glass, and thermoplastic
urethane. Only the most powerful armor-piercing rounds could penetrate it. Still, the glass by itself wouldn’t hold a Phant—the metallic circles embedded in the floor and ceiling of the container performed the actual containment, via some sort of electromagnetic beam. At least, that’s what the SKs claimed.