The robot vanished from view.
A blue vapor rose from where the robot body had fallen. Black electricity sparked along the edges of the vapor. It had no definite form, but as it advanced I thought at times it looked vaguely humanoid.
I fired at the electrical mist and my bullets poked holes right through it—the thing continued forward unhindered, the punctures vanishing as the vapor merely reformed.
More gunfire came at us now, from the other two Centurions. Again I should have been dead, but whatever had taken over those robots had no idea how to properly aim the rifles.
"Rage," Facehopper said over the platoon comm, while hosing down three crabs. "See if you can take down the Centurions!"
"What about the Phant?" That was my name for the encroaching blue mist.
Facehopper knew exactly what I was talking about. "Concentrate on what we
can
kill versus what we can't!"
I abandoned the Phant for now, hoping that one of my platoon mates would find a way to take it out. I searched the seething mob through my scope while the others around me kept the crabs at bay. The creatures were so close now that several made it right up to our wedge before being shot down.
I didn't have a chance to find the other two Centurions because Lieutenant Commander Braggs issued an overriding order.
"Fall back!" the Lieutenant Commander said. "Fall back!"
Big Dog stepped forward while the rest of the wedge pulled back. He just let loose, severing the cords linking those crabs to their host slug with his M60. "You think you're good, huh? You want some? How about you?" When his ammo ran out, he tossed the weapon and switched to his rifle.
"Big Dog," Facehopper said. "Fall back!"
Tahoe, Alejandro, Ghost, Facehopper and I lingered, waiting for Big Dog. We fired at the tumultuous throng, severing those cords, taking down crabs, trying to cover him.
Finally Big Dog started to retreat, walking backwards, loosing rounds the whole time. Crabs were just falling all around him. "Come on motherfuckers, is that all you got? That all?"
Then a Centurion bullet struck him. I saw the blood spurt from the back of his suit.
Big Dog fell backward, then he got up on one knee and kept firing. His suit bulged in the chest region, both front and back. He needed to have that patched right away. Probably needed a chest seal too, on both sides. I heard a strange gurgling on the comm. It sounded like... like he was laughing.
I ran forward with Ghost and Facehopper to help him.
A crab rushed right up to Big Dog, and he mowed it down—
Revealing a Phant.
It had crept forward unseen, hidden among the throng.
"Don't let it touch you!" Facehopper said.
But it was too late.
The mist enveloped Big Dog. He spun around, and his gaze met mine. I saw the heart-breaking fear in his eyes. He mouthed a single word.
"Help."
One second he was there, then the next he was just gone. When the Phant moved away, all that was left of Big Dog was a charred, organic mess on the cave floor.
Big Dog, my friend, my brother, a man I had trained with in the Teams for the past two years, a man who had survived the same arduous Trial Week, a man who had called out to me for help in his dying moments in the belief that somehow I, his platoon brother, would find a way to rescue him, was dead.
It was my fault.
I'd let him get shot by a Centurion.
I'd let the Phant take him.
The Phant.
The glowing blue mist was coming straight at me.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
It was Alejandro.
"Rade. We have to go."
The mist was coming. It seemed almost hypnotic. Beautiful.
"Rade!"
His voice snapped me out of the trance and I ran. "What about Big Dog's body?"
"There is no body!" Alejandro said.
We sprinted through the tunnel. Since I couldn't uptick the strength of the jumpsuit anymore, I considered manually firing my jetpack to give me an extra boost of speed. I decided against it in the end, because one small mistake and I'd go careening into a tunnel wall. Safer just to run. I didn't want any of my platoon mates to have to turn back for me. The others shared the same sentiment I guess, because no one used their jumpjets.
All I really wanted was to get back to the ATLAS. Then I could even up the odds a bit.
Then I could avenge Big Dog.
More than avenge.
We'd be dining on crab legs tonight, all of us.
And we'd see how well that Phant dealt with my mech's gatlings.
The platoon reached the entrance.
Except the entrance wasn't there anymore.
"What in the hell..." Lieutenant Commander Braggs knelt before the cave-in that sealed us off from the surface.
"Mao did this," Facehopper said.
Chief Bourbonjack nodded. "The bastard probably had the tunnel entrance rigged with micro-explosives. Little parting gift for us."
"Goddammit." Braggs kicked at the fallen rocks. The fragments weren't very big, so if we had time, we probably
could've dug our way out. Unfortunately, we didn't have time.
"This is why you never show your enemy mercy," Ghost told me.
That relentless chittering was growing louder behind us.
"I don't suppose anyone has any rockets or grenades left?" Chief Bourbonjack said.
None of us did.
The first crabs appeared, far down the tunnel. A slug was behind them, phasing in and out, crowding out the tunnel with its bulk, barely fitting within the five-meter wide confines.
"Never thought it would end like this," Snakeoil said. "Suppose I can't complain though. At least I get to die fighting side by side with my platoon brothers. That's more than I could ever hope for. Or deserve."
I snapped in my last magazine. "Brothers to the end."
"To the end," Alejandro said.
"To the end," Tahoe repeated.
"Wooyah!" Skullcracker shouted.
I hadn't heard that word since BSD/M. It was good hearing it now.
It made me think of a quote from Winston Churchill, one that got me through training.
Never give in—never, never, never, never. If you're going through hell, keep going.
My brothers and I dropped, assuming a wedge formation.
We would fight.
And we would die.
Brothers to the end.
"For Big Dog," I said, and fired.
And so my valiant brothers fired, mowing down the enemy, as my platoon made its last stand.
I didn't feel any of that naive invincibility, not this time.
We were going to die.
We were barely holding back the main onslaught of crabs as it was, when the giant slug decided to close. Half of us were forced to concentrate our fire on it while the rest focused on the crabs that were swarming our position and making it impossible to shoot their connecting cords.
We had one small advantage at least: Because of their size, only one slug could fit into that tunnel at a time. They'd have to line up in single file to get us. Then again, maybe that wasn't an advantage, because this slug just kept plowing forward—maybe pushed on by its brethren from behind. For a second I thought it was just going to bowl us over, but I guess it didn't like the sting of our gunfire, because when it got to within five meters from us it decided to dematerialize and retreat.
You'd think that would be a victory.
Wrong.
By becoming immaterial, the creature allowed the crabs connected to the next slug in line to surge forward. And those multi-headed creatures almost overwhelmed
us.
I ran out of ammo on my rifle and switched to the lone pistol I had at my belt. I was able to sever the connecting cords of those crabs with a single shot, but barring that, I found that aiming at the place where the "eyestalks" joined the multiple heads was just as effective. (I called them eyestalks, because they were located on the heads in roughly the spot where you'd think to find eyes, but in reality I had no idea what those stalks were.) Still, it was tricky,
what with the way those creatures moved, and if I couldn't shoot the connecting cord I'd have to let the crab come right up to my position before taking it out.
I was shooting away, taking out crabs, when a clean shot at a connecting cord presented itself. I took the shot, but my pistol clicked.
"I'm out," I said.
Someone tossed me a spare pistol magazine.
I wouldn't have to fight with my fists yet, then. I wasn't looking forward to that moment. Those sharp, serrated pincers looked like they could easily slice through our jumpsuits. A fistfight with these things would end badly.
I aimed my pistol, but the clean shot at the connecting cords was gone. It was back to shooting the bases of the eyestalks.
I fired, and my bullet ricocheted from the carapace of my target. It took three shots for me to make the killing blow—the thing was just moving too fast.
At the edge of my vision I saw Alejandro turn slightly beside me to retrieve a dropped magazine. When he did that, he basically shoved the canisters of his jetpack into the side of my helmet. If a ricocheting bullet happened to hit one of his fuel canisters, I'd get a controlled, super-heated burst of steam right in the facemask. Then again, that was better than getting
the actual bullet in the face.
Wait a second. A super-heated burst of steam...
"Guys!" I said. "Take off your jetpacks!"
My platoon brothers ignored me and continued firing.
I holstered my pistol and unbuckled the belts that kept my jetpack in place. I shrugged the pack off and hurled it against the cave-in, then positioned the pack so that the fuel canister faced outward.
"Rage." Facehopper glanced over his shoulder between shots. "You do know the fuel canisters are designed not to explode when struck by a bullet, right? You'll get a burst of steam, maybe some flame, and that's about it."
"I'm going to need this for a sec, Alejandro." While Alejandro fired into the onrush, I removed his bailout O2 canister, opened the valve, and held it beneath my glove. The surgical laser in my finger could only fire at the preset depth of one centimeter, because I didn't have the fine-tune control the Implant provided. That should be good enough. I could still control the burst time, thankfully.
"Laser pulse, 800t," I said. My helmet picked up the request, and the laser in my finger pulsed for 800 trillionths of a second, right into the heart of the venting gas. The pure oxygen lit up light a match.
One mini-torch, as desired. Good.
I lodged the torch in the loose stone beneath the jetpack, positioning the flame right beside the leftmost fuel canister.
I glanced at Facehopper. "If you heat it first, then shoot, you'll get more than a controlled burst of steam."
Facehopper and Chief Bourbonjack exchanged a look.
"Everyone!" Chief Bourbonjack said. "Take off your jetpacks in pairs, and line 'em up against the blockage. Grab your buddy's bailout O2 and make yourselves a mini-torch with your glove lasers. Place the torch beneath one of the fuel canisters, following Rage's example. Clear as mud? We'll do it two at a time, starting with Facehopper and Tahoe. Go!"
Facehopper
and Tahoe doffed their jetpacks and shoved them against the cave-in. Facehopper took off Tahoe's bailout oxygen canister, and vice versa. They lit them up and positioned the flames beneath their fuel canisters, then the two of them returned to their positions in the wedge and shouted, "Done!"
And so it continued down the line, with my platoon brothers depositing their jetpacks and torches in pairs against the collapsed rock while the others defended against the endless onrush. Snakeoil opted out: It was too much work to take off and replace the communications rucksack, which fit snugly over his jetpack.
TJ and Ghost were last. TJ didn't look too happy when he rejoined the wedge. "Too many jetpacks, man. We want an explosion that will blast away the blockage, not bring down the whole roof."
He was right. Not only that, it was taking too long to heat up the fuel canisters with the torches spread out like that. The canister I'd originally placed was only now starting to turn red hot on the bottom.
"I'm switching the torches to two of the canisters!" I hurried back to the blockage, and moved the mini-torches, concentrating them beneath two of the jetpack fuel canisters, mine, and another one placed early on. Then I started moving the other heated jetpacks away, somewhat worried that one of them would blow up in my face.
"Rage, forget it!" Facehopper said. "That's good enough."
Without the direct heat, the other fuel canisters probably wouldn't detonate in the ensuing explosion.
Probably.
So it was done.
We now had our improvised explosive device.
"We need some space!" I said. "We're too close!"
"We don't have any space!" Facehopper yelled.
The current giant slug was making a charge.
"We'll make some," Chief said.
Most of the crabs connected to that slug had been severed or shot down at this point, and the slug itself was riddled with bullets. We must have inflicted too much pain, because this slug gave up too, fading into insubstantiality and backing away, making room for the next slug in line with its fresh horde of crabs.
We fought our way forward, wading through the bodies of the dead. Magazines were exhausted, then reloaded.
I was down to my last few rounds and didn't want to waste them, so I holstered the pistol and scooped up a torn pincer. I swung it like a scythe as one of those crabs came right at me, and I cut off both its front legs at the joint.
The injured crab pulled itself up, and those long mandibles opened to wrap around my chest—
I brought the sharp, pointed end of my improvised scythe down on the carapace, cracking it in two. The thing collapsed.
Damn, these pincers were sharp.
We couldn't really go any further. Sure, we'd pushed back the enemy front, and were wading deep in crab body parts, but I think everyone was on their last magazines now, and the current slug wasn't giving in to our onslaught.
I glanced back. The two jetpack fuel canisters I'd concentrated the mini-torches on were now both orange hot, edging toward the yellow spectrum, with the bottoms tinged white.
"We're good!" I shouted.
"MOTHs," Chief Bourbonjack said. "I'll count it out. On three we turn, drop, and shoot. Aim for the two hottest fuel canisters. Take your pick. Keep firing until they explode."
"What if they don't?" Ghost said.
"Then we're screwed."
Three Phants drifted past the edge of the giant slug. No matter how many times my brothers shot them, the malevolent glowing mists always reformed, floating inexorably closer.
"Don't waste your time on the mists!" Skullcracker said.
Facehopper tossed aside his spent M4 rifle, and withdrew his pistol. "Chief, now would be a good time..."
"One!" Chief said.
"Two!"
"Three!"
We turned.
We dropped.
I aimed my pistol at the white-hot portion of my jetpack—
And fired my last three rounds.
Around me, I heard the rapid, repeated staccato of firing pins striking primers as my platoon brothers opened fire. It was a beautiful sound. An orchestra playing what could very well be its last symphony.
There were four possible outcomes to sending those bullets into the superheated jetpack fuel canisters.
Outcome number one: The initial bullets penetrated the canisters. The interiors steamed out. The subsequent shots caused sparks that ignited the liquid fuel in each, causing an explosion hopefully powerful enough to breach the heat-weakened canisters.
Outcome two: The successive bullets caused the super-heated canisters to catastrophically lose containment integrity. Each canister contained liquid fuel at an extremely high temperature and pressure. Basic physics stated that if a pressurized vessel containing liquid at high temperature were to rupture catastrophically, then there would suddenly exist a large mass of liquid at a very high temperature and very low pressure. That liquid would of course boil instantaneously, and expand at an extremely fast rate, giving a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, or BLEVE.
Outcome three: Both options one and two transpired. Maybe the oxygen from the bailout tanks contributed as well, if any of those vessels became punctured.
Outcome four: A whole lot of nothing.
Judging from the massive fireball of orange flames I saw, it looked like option three was in full effect.
I ducked my head.
The shockwave pulsed over me.
Rock fragments hit my suit. I felt stabs of pain all along my backside as some of those fragments really dug in. The shrapnel must have formed a seal, because I still had internal suit pressure.
The heat flared up inside my jumpsuit, and it felt like I was re-entering the atmosphere in my ATLAS again. Visions of being trapped in a burning box filled my mind, but I fought down the panic. I had to.
Then it was over.
The heat receded.
The jumpsuit had protected me. For the most part. There was a throbbing pain in my right buttock, likely from a piece of shrapnel that would have to be surgically removed later.
I burrowed out of the fragments that had buried me. The heat flash had caused many of those rocks to fuse into something resembling glass.
My vision was obscured—I wiped the lens of my facemask with a blackened glove, clearing away the soot or whatever it was, and I did the same for my helmet lamp. Even so, I couldn't see all that much in any direction because of all the airborne dust.
I climbed to my feet and turned around.
There were charred alien body parts strewing the tunnel behind me, amid the fragments of glassy rock. I couldn't see much else beyond the bodies, not yet. The tunnel was eerily quiet. The slug was completely gone. Dead and phased out of existence, I guessed.
There was movement on the ground beside me, and I spun my 9-mil toward it:
Alejandro emerged from the fragments of glassy shale. His jumpsuit was coated in the same black soot. A molten slag from one of the canisters protruded from his right shoulder.
He wiped the black stuff from his facemask and glanced at me. "Looks like a bunch of seagulls decided to use you as target practice."
"Yeah? You too." I nodded at the molten slag. "Except you got hit by bigger turds. How's the suit pressure?"
"Remind me how you ever talked me into joining up."
"I guess that means the suit pressure's fine."
Around me, my platoon brothers were burrowing free. I made a mental head-count. Looked like everyone was present, and uninjured.
The clattering started up
anew and I saw, as the dust cleared, that the shockwave had pushed the enemy front back about ten meters. The three Phants had been shoved backward too—the stunned mists were only now re-coalescing.
"Ammo," I said distractedly.
"I'm almost out." Alejandro tossed me a 9-mil magazine anyway.
"Guys," Ghost said. "We did it."
I followed his gaze. The dust had settled enough to discern the blast site. The blockage had cleared, but only partially. Either more fragments had fallen from above or the blast hadn't been strong enough to move everything. Still, just half the tunnel was blocked now, with the fragments reaching about waist-high. Beyond, I could see light pouring dimly from the shaft. The jetpacks were gone—those that hadn't exploded were probably buried in the rubble.