Resist the Red Battlenaut (8 page)

 

*****

 

 

Scott's Battlenaut marched down the drop ship's rear gangway, just a few steps from the surface of Shard. The planet's mysteries and dangers were closer than ever now, waiting to challenge him.

Not that they'd have an easy time getting to him when they tried. Scott was surrounded on all sides by armored Diamondbacks committed to protecting him. As a secret weapon, the only one who could see the enemy, he had to be shielded at all times. If things went south in a big way, the Diamondbacks had orders to get him back to the
Sun Tzu
at any cost.

Protect the Red-detector: that was the heart of the team's surface warfare strategy for this mission. Scott knew it was the right strategy, he had no doubt in his mind...but he still hated the thought of it. His instinct was to take the point and drive hard at all times, not hang back while someone else drew fire on his behalf.

"Here we go." Abby's sharp tone came through crystal clear over the comm. She was on point, in command of the squad. "Keep it tight, people."

"Roger that," said Trane, who was stomping down the gangway on Scott's left. "Locked and loaded, good to go."

No one else said anything right away. They were about to step out into an inhospitable environment, with unknown enemies in the wind and high stakes on their shoulders. Lack of focus in the first moments on the surface could lead to early casualties and premature mission failure.

On his frontside feed, Scott watched Abby's Battlenaut cover the last few meters of ramp directly ahead. Without hesitation, she stomped right out onto the planet's surface--in this place, a deep bronze flat with a pebbled texture.

The squad held up behind her as she stood for a moment, surveying the area. Projectile guns had formed on both her forearms, and she swept them back and forth as she looked for trouble.

"All clear." She kept the guns raised as she moved forward again. "For now."

The rest of the squad took that as their cue and followed her out.

With Trane on his left and García on his right, Scott took his first steps on Shard. He was letting Frank the A.I. do the driving, with overrides for course correction and sudden stops or starts as needed. Minor adjustments were handled just fine by Frank, whose autopilot capabilities had been demonstrated as outstanding during every drill and exercise on the
Sun Tzu
's Training Deck.

That was a good thing, because Scott had other minute-by-minute mission critical tasks on his plate. Chief among them, he had to eyeball his video feeds constantly, watching for any signs of Red activity in case Frank and the other A.I.s missed it.

As good as the A.I. systems were, Scott didn't trust them entirely. The Reds were so adept as concealment, he couldn't imagine they hadn't planned for A.I. involvement.

As Scott walked across the pebbled bronze ground, he brought up every feed and used eye control to arrange them side by side in front of him. He locked them in place, then flicked his eyes from one to the other along the line, checking for aberrations, finding nothing...yet.

Then, on his frontside feed, he saw something lunge out of a hole in the ground at eleven o'clock, a golden blur streaking toward the ebony bulk of Abby's Battlenaut. For an instant, Scott thought it might be a Red threat, blurred by masking technology--but the blur was just the product of fast movement. As soon as the thing landed in front of Abby, its image clarified.

It was some kind of biometallic creature, like a gold-skinned serpent with the head of a wolf. As it reared up in front of Abby, it bared its golden fangs and unfurled rows of gleaming blades like cleavers running along the sides of its body. Pulling back, it looked like it was ready to strike.

Which was exactly when Abby's armor grew a large-bore shoulder cannon and blasted five rounds right through the creature's skull in short order. Headless, its body flopped to the ground at Abby's feet.

"Avoid contact with native fauna whenever possible," said Abby, quoting the pre-mission briefing they'd attended aboard the
Sun Tzu
.

"That was native fauna?" said Trane. "Looked more like García after a bender."

García said nothing in reply. His armor looked as implacable as ever when Scott stole a glimpse at his rightside feed.

"That was a documented species, actually," said Khalil, who was stationed at Scott's seven o'clock behind Trane. "It could have tunneled right into her armor and devoured her down to the bone in less than a minute."

"You sure about that?" said Trane. "She's pretty stringy."

"And there are nastier creatures than that down here," said Khalil. "
Much
nastier."

"Not counting the Reds," said Donna.

"Move out!" Abby marched her Battlenaut over the creature's carcass as she said it. "We're still three klicks out from our target."

The squad fell in behind her. The drop ship had put them down some distance from the location Scott had spotted on the probe feed. They had some ground to cover, but it was better than landing too close and getting blown to pieces right off the bat. This way, even if the Reds had detected the drop ship's approach, the squad still made landfall and had a chance of reaching the target in one piece.

For a while, the seven Diamondback Battlenauts continued their march in relative silence--no chatter over the comms, no gunfire, no surprises. They looped around a dark gray slope that kept them out of eyeshot of the target, letting them close to within half a klick of it before they'd have to emerge from cover.

The whole time, Frank did the driving while Scott scanned the feeds. He saw some amazing sights--bizarre plantlike lifeforms and creatures close by or at a distance, bodies grown from biometallic materials. There were beasts like pygmy unicorns plated in glossy blue titanium armor...trails of dull gray-green powder flowing in intricate patterns over silvery flatlands...galvanized pods like pitcher plants the size of full-grown men, spewing showers of ball bearings into the air. He was struck by how strange and beautiful Shard was, even as he recognized how deadly it could be. For every butterfly of lacy aluminum fluttering by, he saw a giant lizard-thing studded with silver spikes or an elephantine leviathan covered in whirling razor-sharp blades and spring-loaded jaws with hundreds of serrated teeth.

But he didn't see any Reds. He didn't see any mysterious blurs or incongruous visuals that might suggest a cloaked presence.

At least until the squad finished rounding the slope.

"Approaching target coordinates," said Abby. "Safeties off, people."

Scott followed her around the last curve of the slope, gazing intently at his frontside feed. Then, as the leading edge of the target slid into view, Abby stopped, and Scott did the same.

"So this is it? A bunch of empty space?" Abby pointed one of her projectile guns toward the coordinates. "Is that what you see, Scott?"

"No, sir." Scott's eyes were wide as he gaped at the feed. "It most certainly is not."

What he saw was anything but empty space. "Holy flux." It was an enormous structure, a huge, cube-shaped building sprawling across the valley. "It's some kind of facility. A
big
one."

"Amazing." Trane stepped forward, angling for a better view. "My A.I. sees it, too...but I don't see a damn thing."

The rest of the squad pushed forward, too, breaking formation.

"I don't see it, either," said Khalil. "But yes, my A.I. tells me it's there."

"Are you
sure
it's there?" said Balko.

Even García joined in. "Maybe the A.I.s are wrong."

"It's there, all right." Scott saw the image clearly in his frontside feed, rock-solid stable and free of distortion. "But who knows what it's there
for
." From a distance, the walls of the structure looked completely smooth and seamless, reflecting the sky and landscape without giving any clues to what lay within. "It just looks like a big silver box."

"A factory, maybe?" said Donna.

"A processing plant for biometals, I'll bet," said Trane. "It's what we expected."

"No one coming and going, according to my A.I.," said Abby.

"We need to get closer," said Khalil.

"To the giant, unidentifiable building on the planet of living knives." Trane's voice oozed sarcasm. "I can hardly wait."

"It's why we're here." Abby grew a laser out of each shoulder and added barrels to the projectile guns on her forearms. "We're going in."

"As one big cluster of Battlenauts stomping up to the front door." Trane snorted. "Awesome plan."

"We don't even know where the front door
is
," said Abby. "We need to draw them out."

"I wish we could just surround the place and blow it to kingdom come." said Balko. "Just bring it down."

"But we want
prisoners
, remember?" Abby's voice was getting sharper. "Otherwise, the
Sun Tzu
could've bombed the scudge out of these coordinates from
orbit
." She blew out her breath loudly. "We've already
gone over
all this. Now quit yapping and
move out
."

With that, she started forward, marching in the direction of the cube-shaped structure. The squad fell into formation and followed--Scott in the middle, with the others arranged around him.

Whatever was waiting for them in that mirror-walled edifice, they were heading straight for it, taking the fight to the Reds. Six Diamondbacks and one Marine were going up against unknown odds, buttressed only by mechanical armor, determination, raw courage, and A.I.s who could see what they could not.

 

*****

 

 

As the squad crossed the silver terrain, there were no signs of movement from the structure. That only heightened the tension as the Diamondbacks marched and waited for something to happen. The closer they got, the more tense they became.

They were sitting ducks, and they knew it. Abby was leading them along the curve of the slope, approaching what might be the back side of the building--the side facing away from the heart of the valley--but they were still out in the open, with no cover or camouflage. They would be visible to anyone inside the structure, easily detectable by surveillance equipment. And because they were bunched close together to protect Scott, they provided a tighter target for any weapons fire from behind those mirrored walls.

The pressure was on. It was cool inside the cockpit of Scott's Battlenaut, but sweat still ran down his sides and back. He'd been in tough situations before, but none quite like this.

As his eyes flicked back and forth over the video feeds, he spoke to his A.I. "Frank. Form additional large-bore swivel-mounted guns on upper arms and hips. Add a dorsal laser turret between shoulders."

"This configuration will limit the use of certain capabilities requiring high mass utilization," said Frank. "Drone pods and biofilm ejectors will be offline. Beanstalk function will be unavailable. Proceed?"

"Do it." Scott wanted as much straight-up firepower at his command as possible.

"See anything, Corporal?" said Abby.

"Nothing new," said Scott. "The place is still buttoned up tight."

"Maybe it's abandoned," said Donna. "Or maybe it's only periodically manned and operational."

"Makes sense," said Balko.

"Maybe," said Trane. "Unless you consider what a high-value target this is.
I
wouldn't leave it unprotected."

"Agreed," said Khalil. "At the very least, they've left a garrison to defend it."

"But it's
invisible
," said García.

"Not to our A.I.s, it isn't," said Khalil. "Not to Scott, it isn't."

Just then, Scott saw something twitch at two o'clock. He threw his rightside feed on maximum mag--only to realize it was just an armadillo-like creature, scampering across the terrain. No danger there.

No
nothing
, in fact, as the squad drew closer. Not a peep out of the Reds--so
were
they inside, and if so, what were they up to? Were they waiting for the right moment to pounce, or were they all just asleep at the wheel, lulled to complacency by the facility's cloak of virtual invisibility?

After a while, Abby spoke. "We're a hundred meters from the structure. Still no movement."

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." Trane snickered.

"Get your A.I.s looking for a door," said Abby. "We need a way in."

Scott maxed the magnification on his frontside camera and scanned the side of the building. Still, he could see no seam or break in the gleaming skin of the wall looming overhead. "I've got nothing. The outer surface appears to be uninterrupted."

"Damn," said Abby. "Looks like we might have to blast our way in."

"If we
can
," said Khalil. "Maybe that's the
real
reason it's unprotected--because it's
impenetrable
."

"Impenetrable my ass," said García. "We'll find a way in."

The squad went further, covering another twenty-five meters. Scott kept watching the feeds for signs of trouble and saw nothing alarming. Meanwhile, his heart rate rose in direct proportion to the amount of visible danger. The more nothing he saw, the more tense he became.

"My A.I. says there's a wall up ahead," said Donna.

"That's right," said Scott. "An enormous wall, eighty meters high, with a mirrored surface. I can see us reflected in it as we get closer."

Another twenty-five meters passed...then ten more. Abby's Battlenaut continued to stride forward, its broad feet crossing the silver ground.

Then, suddenly, she stopped. "What the flux? Thing's putting out some kind of radio signal."

"My A.I. picked it up, too," said Khalil. "It's moving out in all directions from the structure."

"Why?" said Donna. "What's it doing?"

"I'll tell you what it's doing," said Trane. "It's disappearing! It's blocking our A.I.s!"

"He's right!" said Abby. "My A.I. just went blind!"

"Mine, too," said García.

Everyone said the same thing, and Scott confirmed it. Flicking off the comm channel, he spoke directly to his A.I. "Frank, describe your current visual input."

"There is none," said Frank. "All visual input has ceased."

Looking around the cockpit, Scott saw that wasn't quite accurate. All the video feeds were still coming in clear, and all sensors were still providing data. "You're telling me you have no visuals? What about sensors?"

"No visuals," said Frank. "No sensor readings, either. I am quite literally in the dark, Solomon."

Scott switched the comm back on. "My A.I. is blind, too," he told the others. "But video and sensor feeds are working fine."

"Same here," said Abby. "But without the damn A.I., I can't see the Red structure."

The rest of the squad agreed. Video and sensor feeds weren't much good if the human pilot couldn't see anything Red-related.

"Impressive," said Trane. "That radio signal carried a computer virus that reprogrammed the visual signal processing subroutine in the A.I.s. Video's still coming in, but they can't
see
it."

"And
we
can see
video
, but not the
Reds
," said Khalil.

"Good thing we brought a secret weapon," said Abby. "Corporal Scott, you're going to have to walk us through this, after all."

"Roger that." Even as he said it, Scott caught a glimpse of something hurtling down in front of the squad. "Incoming!" he cried, as loud as he could.

The hurtling object plunged into the ground less than a meter from Abby, barely missing her armor.

"Damn!" said Trane. "Those Reds don't waste any time, do they?"

"What is it?" snapped Abby. "My A.I.'s blind, and all I see on video is empty ground!"

Scott rushed up and got a look at what had just crashed down. It was a slim, triangular fin, three meters long and painted flat black, with a sharp nose driven into the metallic ground. A cylindrical housing hugged the central shaft several centimeters behind the nose. As he watched, the housing turned clockwise and started sliding forward.

"Everybody move!" hollered Scott. "Go go go!"

As one, the Diamondbacks lurched away from the landing site. Scott's armor lumbered after them; Frank couldn't see, so Scott had to pick a direction and tell him to run.

"
Warhead
!" said Scott. "It's gonna'
blow
!"

Just as he said it, the missile exploded behind him, swamping him with a shockwave of shuddering force.

 

*****