ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2) (42 page)

“I can’t. I won’t.” I raised my electrocuffed hands and gripped Hijak by the shoulder. “I have to do this. Besides, I outrank you. So I’m ordering you to stand down.”

Hijak twisted from my grasp. “That’s bullshit and you know it. We’re the same rank. Sir.”

“True. But I attained my rank before you. Seniority in grade, bro.”

Hijak shook his head.

“Look, Hijak,” I said. “You know why it has to be me? I was going to transfer to a different Team anyway. Probably quit, after that. My heart’s not in this job, not anymore. We need real MOTHs. People like you. People ready to fight and die for what they believe in. People with
heart
. I don’t have that anymore. My warrior spirit died with my friends.”

Hijak wouldn’t stand down. “And I’ll tell you why it has to be me. I broke when the Keeper interrogated me, Rage. Broke. Betrayed the platoon. I can’t live with what I’ve done. Not if I let you die, too. Let me do this. You have to. You deserve to live. Besides, you never know, maybe I’ll be able to learn something about the enemy while I’m integrated. It’ll be like an extreme undercover op, except with some crazy body modification. When you and the platoon come back for me, I’ll have some stories to tell.”

I shook my head. “You don’t get it do you? There is no coming back from this. A steel bar grafted to your skull and spine, with a Phant shoving its incorporeal tendrils into your brain? No, Hijak, there’s no return. You heard the Guide. You’ll become worse than a slave. Look at these people. They’re hardly more than machines now. I’m sorry, I’ve made up my mind.” I turned toward the Guide. “I volunteer. Let him go.”

“Very well,” the Guide said.

“Sorry, sir,” Hijak’s voice came from behind me. “But you’re forcing me to do this.”

Something struck the back of my head with enough force to jar my teeth, and I fell to my knees. I groggily shook the stars from my vision.

I was vaguely aware as Hijak stepped past me. Even with his hands electrocuffed, he could still hit pretty hard.

“Take me and let Rage go,” Hijak said.

The Guide spoke. “Well played, Dyson Xang.” To the robots: “Take the one left standing.”

I watched two masters-at-arms robots grab Hijak. “No.” I said weakly.

The Guide ignored me, and glanced at Jiāndāo. “Oversee his integration.”

Jiāndāo inclined her head.

“Hijak,” I said, pleading.

Hijak glanced over his shoulder at me. “It’s all right, Rage. They can’t harm me now. No one can.”

And then he was gone, led off the bridge by Jiāndāo and the combat robots.

I slumped.

“Rade Galaal,” the Guide said. “Your jumpsuit will be returned, and you will be vented from an airlock. Once outside our ship, you will activate your Personal Alert Safety System. If you are lucky, one of your ships will pick you up before your oxygen runs out. If you are unlucky, you will die, and the UC will retrieve your body anyway, along with your embedded ID. Your military has the technology to access the ID without a password. A technology I will have very soon.” The Guide smiled ironically. “It has been a pleasure.”

Two robots led me from the bridge.

I didn’t see Hijak in the corridor outside. However his Implant, like my own, was still active.

And he was logged in.

I watched his progress on my HUD map. He retraced the exact path we had taken from the Convalescence Ward. The dot representing Hijak descended to the lower deck, turned left onto the T intersection, and entered the closed-off hallway containing the ward. He proceeded into a side compartment across from the ward, and stayed there.

Wards on UC vessels had similar layouts. Across from the recovery area there was always a small compartment set aside for intensive surgery.

I shut my eyes.

Hijak was going to be integrated with the Phants in a surgical process that would essentially kill who he was.

And it was my fault. I shouldn’t have turned my back on him. Shouldn’t have let him get the jump on me.

I arrived at a storage locker.

The robots opened the locker and tossed out the contents.

My jumpsuit.

“Dress,” one of the robots commanded.

My electrocuffs clicked open and fell off.

I just stared at the jumpsuit. I couldn’t take my mind off Hijak, nor the magnitude of my betrayal. I was leaving him behind. He was going to die.

The robots drew their rifles and trained them on me. “Dress.”

I zipped on the “liquid-cooling and ventilation” undergarment. When I got to the actual jumpsuit, I activated my PASS device immediately, pretending it was part of the suit initialization procedure. It was questionable whether the signal would pass through the shielded hull of the vessel, and even if it did, the interference emitted by the Phants likely reduced the range. If the signal
was
detected, it would be quite a while before any nearby ships reached this location anyway.

When I was fully suited, I attached the life-support and jumpjet assemblies.

The robots led me to an airlock.

So this was it.

I was going to be unceremoniously flushed from the ship.

I would live.

And Hijak would die.

This wasn’t right.

I couldn’t leave him.

I couldn’t abandon him.

Despite our differences, he was my platoon brother.

Abandonment wasn’t part of our creed.

I surreptitiously unclasped the main buckles of my jetpack, and let the device hang over my jumpsuit by the shoulder straps alone.

The robots shoved me inside the airlock.

Before they could close the hatch, I turned around, slipped off the jetpack, and swung it toward them.

“Catch!”

I activated the jetpack remotely with my Implant, applying full forward thrust to double its momentum.

The jetpack slammed into the robots like a sledgehammer of steel and fuel.

The machines crashed into the opposite bulkhead.

I cut the power and the robots crumpled to the deck.

They didn’t get up.

I glanced one last time at Hijak’s location on my HUD map, doing my best to memorize the route. Then I thought the words to deactivate my Implant, because I knew a crippling burst of EM radiation from the Phants would probably fill my Implant with garbage data any second.

Zulu Romeo Lima
.

The Implant shut off.

I opened my face mask and stepped from the airlock.

Drops of glowing liquid trickled onto the deck from the robot that had taken the brunt of the blow.

Keeping my eyes on the liquid Phant, I knelt to retrieve the disabled robot’s rifle—

A hand abruptly wrapped around my boot and tripped me.

The other robot.

It was pinned beneath the first, but as I lay facedown on the deck, it reeled me in, drawing me toward it and the Phant.

I got in three good kicks with my strength-enhanced suit, and dented the robot’s head enough for it to release me.

I scrambled away and hauled myself upright.

The robot tossed aside the deadweight of my jetpack and the second machine and started to rise.

It still carried its rifle.

If the weapon fired, regardless of whether the bullet hit or not, I was screwed because the ship’s gunfire alert would sound.

Before the robot finished standing, I closed the distance between us, stepped down on the rifle with my strength-enhanced suit, and shoved the robot into the bulkhead.

The weapon tore from the robot’s grasp and bounced on the deck. The tip of the barrel was now uselessly bent. It would still fire of course, though at forty-five degrees to the actual gunsights.

The robot launched itself on me, its fist aimed squarely at my unshielded face.

I managed to turn my head at the last moment, and the outer rim of my helmet absorbed most of the blow. I lurched backward and hit the bulkhead just behind me.

The robot launched another blow.

I dodged.

A small crater appeared in the bulkhead where the robot’s fist struck.

I threw myself at the robot, hurling the two of us to the floor.

I landed on top.

I managed to grab its left arm and, putting the weight of my suit behind my grip, pinned the robot.

Its right arm came swinging in, aimed for my face.

I tilted my head to the side in expectation of a blow that did not come.

Instead of slamming its fist into me, the robot wrapped its polycarbonate fingers around my head and began pushing my helmet toward the deck.

I thought it was trying to break my neck, but when my cheek touched the deck, I realized the robot’s intention: the glowing blue liquid from the first Phant seeped toward my face. I had maybe fifteen seconds before contact.

I shoved frantically against the polycarbonate arm, but the robot had me good. I couldn’t move.

I slid my free hand along the robot’s face, searching for one of the camera lenses by touch. I could feel the recesses and projections through my gloves when I pressed hard enough.

There. A lens.

Military-grade lenses were made of thick glass, so I wouldn’t be able to break it with a mere glove, strength-enhanced or not.

But I had something else in mind.

I pointed the surgical laser in my fingertip into the lens. I got lucky, because this was my good glove. The other one had a melted laser port, courtesy of my encounter with the ATLAS 5 back in the ruins of Shangde City.

“Laser pulse, 1500t,” I said. My helmet picked up the request, and the laser in my finger pulsed for 1500 trillionths of a second, right into the heart of the camera lens.

I slid my finger down to the second lens, and repeated the command.

In theory, I had taken out both its vision sensors.

But the robot didn’t lessen the pressure on my helmet.

Maybe those weren’t the lenses . . . I couldn’t actually see its face from where I was. Or maybe it just didn’t care that it was blind.

The liquid Phant was almost upon me.

I slid my boot sideways, and found purchase against the bulkhead. I pushed off, finally slipping from the robot’s grip.

With nothing to press down against, the robot’s arm slammed into the deck with a loud clang.

I rolled back, and stood up.

The blind robot fumbled about, searching for me.

I danced away from it and the Phant, picking up the bent rifle the robot had dropped. Then I repeatedly bashed the stock into the brain case area of the robot. Dents appeared. A lot of them. I hoped the weapon didn’t accidentally fire and set off an alarm.

Eventually the robot stopped moving and collapsed. Glowing blue liquid seeped out, joining the first Phant on the deck.

I discarded the bent weapon and, stepping around the two Phants, I returned to the first disabled robot and retrieved its rifle.

No Klaxon filled the corridor, which meant neither robot had contacted Security. Maybe the Phants possessing them didn’t know about the security systems they could tap into. Or maybe they’d triggered a silent alarm.

I hauled both robots into the airlock and shut the door. Then I backtracked down the corridor at a run.

In my head I visualized the ship’s blueprint, doing my best to recall the many corridors from the map. I’d always found it mildly confusing to navigate from the top-down perspective of a HUD given the isometric vantage point of real life, but it was even more disorienting when done from memory. I had to backtrack several times, taking detours to avoid any masters-at-arms robots I spotted. None of the robots seemed on high alert, I noted.

Hang in there, Hijak
.

My PASS device was still on. I was slightly worried the Guide might use it to track my whereabouts, but since the UC devices operated on a different band from the SK ones, if the bridge crew didn’t specifically look for the signal, I’d be invisible. Besides, if the Guide really wanted to track me, he could use the security cameras that decorated the overhead. I realized a while ago no one was manning the ship’s security station, at least not properly, because I’d passed several of those cameras without raising an alarm. Perhaps the unintegrated human being who I had thought operated the tactical station was in fact handling Security.

And perhaps he was giving me a chance.

It gave me hope for the future of humanity yet.

One deck down, I eventually reached the T intersection that led to the closed-off hallway I sought.

I slowly peered past the edge of the intersection.

Rifles in hand, two guard robots stood watch in front of the target hallway. The same robots that had escorted Hijak here, I thought.

The ship-wide firearm sensors could only be triggered by the motion of fast-moving projectiles. If I could bring my rifle right up against the brain cases before I fired, I could avoid setting off the alarm.

Now I just had to figure out how I’d get close enough to unleash two shots like that.

I ducked behind the bulkhead and retreated far enough to unload a spare magazine without drawing attention. I approached the T intersection, carefully peered past the edge to confirm the robots remained in position, and then threw the magazine down the opposite corridor.

I ducked against the bulkhead and held my breath.

The clang of polycarbonate-on-metal echoed down the intersection. I didn’t dare look, but given the loudness of each tread, I was certain both robots approached in unison.

Not good.

I had counted on one of the robots staying behind.

This was highly unusual.

Obviously, these aliens didn’t give a damn about proper watch tactics.

The clangs grew louder. My heart beat in time to each polycarbonate footfall.

I reviewed the map in my head, trying to remember if there was a way I could double back and come at the corridor from another direction while the two robots were distracted.

No. This was the only access point.

I had to deal with them here and now.

The clangs became nearly overwhelming—

The robots passed the bend.

I jabbed my rifle into the brain case of the first robot and fired.

I was already flowing toward the second robot—