Reactivated (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 1) Page 13

  Slate got too close to one of the creatures then, and the big animal reared up on its hind legs.

  “Whoa!” Slate raised his arms defensively and backed away. “Calm down, big guy, I’m not going to hurt you. That’s right. Calm down.”

  The animal lowered itself to the ground again, and the land shook all around the team. Eric felt the vibrations rattle his chest assembly like thunder.

  Slate quickly sidestepped away from the creature.

  “Looks like you lost your former confidence around the creature,” Eagleeye transmitted.

  “I ain’t scared of them,” Slate said, slowing down his pace once more, and trying to affect nonchalance.

  The animal ripped down a tree and threw it at Slate.

  “Shit!” He promptly dashed out of the way, and then rapidly increased his gait to rejoin the others.

  “I think he likes you,” Brontosaurus said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Slate said. “Pick on the guy with the biggest dick in the group. I see how it is.”

  “Biggest dick, smallest balls,” Bambi commented.

  “You know, Bambi, I thought we were friends,” Slate said. “I’m going to have to revise my opinion of you.”

  “Please do,” Bambi said.

  “Don’t worry, Slate, we all love you,” Hicks transmitted. “We’d have to, to hang out with you for the past twenty years!”

  “Yes, we love to make fun of you,” Eagleeye sent.

  “All right, that’s it, I’m muting all your asses, save Sarge,” Slate said. “Bye!”

  16

  Eric and the others continued in their three-team traveling overwatch, passing over that area of wood chips, and soon left behind the creatures. The stumps around them faded away as the forest receded into the distance behind them, leaving only the monotonous plains.

  “And I thought the alien forest was bad,” Tread said about half an hour in. “This is just ridiculous. There’s nothing to see all the way to the horizon. At least with the forest, we had some branches to look at. And we even got to swerve now and then to avoid a particularly thick patch of foliage, or to maneuver around a tree in our paths. But not now. We’re just marching constantly.”

  “I find myself examining the indigenous rocks,” Mickey said. “Rocks suddenly become very fascinating, when there’s nothing else to look at.”

  “Well, on the bright side,” Tread said, “at least we’ll be able to recharge fast if any fighting comes, seeing as we’re out from under that thick canopy.”

  A few moments of silence passed.

  “Maybe now would be a good time for VR, Sarge?” Frogger asked hopefully.

  “Negative,” Marlborough replied. “We had our break already. When it’s dark, maybe I’ll authorize another VR deep dive session.”

  “We could always sneak into VR without telling him,” Traps said.

  “That’s right, go and tip your hand to him,” Tread said.

  “With the new admin interface, I can tell whenever any one of you logs out of this reality,” Marlborough said. “So go ahead and try, if you want to be demoted.”

  “I’ll have to pass on that,” Traps said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Marlborough told him.

  “There’s nothing out here, blokes,” Dunnigan said. “I think it’s obvious by now.”

  “Then who gave those Dragonworms helmets?” Dickson said. “Who created bioweapons with organic lasers in their mouths?”

  “Maybe it’s a Banthar bioweapon breeding ground, I don’t know,” Dunnigan said. “If there were Banthar here, I think we would have run into them by now.”

  “You might be getting your wish soon enough,” Crusher said. “Considering that we’re out in the open.”

  “Wonderful,” Dunnigan said. “Here’s wishing I was back on Earth, in a pub in Little England, drinking a fine English pint.”

  “A fine English pint,” Slate said. “You say it so snobbish like. What is it with you and your English pints.”

  “Hey, I thought you muted us all?” Eagleeye asked.

  “Gotcha, bitch!” Slate replied.

  “I’ll have you know there’s nothing better than English beer,” Dunnigan said.

  “Yeah, bro, maybe you should try German beer sometime,” Slate said.

  “Ugh,” Dunnigan said. “The Germans don’t know how to brew beer.”

  “Uh, yeah they do,” Slate said. “Ever been to Oktoberfest?”

  “They still run it after all these years?” Eric asked.

  “Of course,” Slate said. “It’s been ongoing for the past two centuries. After the invasion, they just moved it to New York.”

  “I’m going to have to see if I can prepare some Heineken and some Guinness for you guys to sample in VR,” Frogger said.

  “I’ll take the Guinness,” Dunnigan said. “Don’t bother with the Heineken, though.”

  “Uh, bother with the Heineken,” Slate said. “I can drink that shit like it’s water. Even if it is Dutch.”

  “Done,” Frogger said. “I’ll keep you guys updated.”

  “You do know that Guinness is Irish, not English, right?” Crusher said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dunnigan said. “It’s better than Dutch or German beer. Obviously, I’d prefer a Newcastle Brown, but I’ll settle for what I can get.”

  “I never tried Newcastle Brown,” Frogger said. “So I can’t help you with that one, sorry.”

  “French wine is so much better than your crude beers,” Bambi said. “We had some of the best wines, before the invasion. Ah, a wine from the Bordeaux region was just heavenly. But we lost all that, thanks to these Banthar. France is gone. I can understand why Eagleeye and others want vengeance. I want it, too. I want these Banthar to pay for what they did to our planet.”

  “They’ll pay, don’t you worry,” Dickson said. “Eventually.”

  “Eventually,” Bambi said.

  “You know, before Turg left us, she warned that the Banthar would return,” Eric said. “She told us we had centuries if we were lucky, or decades if we were not. It’s been twenty years. The Banthar could be on the cusp of another invasion. Turg told us to concentrate on building starships capable of interstellar travel. Something I reported to the military when I returned.”

  “But it fell on deaf ears,” Mickey said.

  “Essentially,” Eric said.

  “Turg never did say why interstellar travel would help us,” Slate said.

  “I think it’s obvious,” Bambi said. “So we could start populating other worlds to serve as backups in case Earth fell. That way humanity, and the Mind Refurbs, could strike back, and retake our planet.”

  “Oh of course, you have all the answers, don’t you?” Slate said.

  “Only to the questions you pose,” Bambi said sweetly.

  “Bitch,” Slate muttered.

  “I think they should get a room,” Hicks said.

  “Okay!” Slate agreed eagerly. “Bambi, I’m game!”

  “Uh, no, she’s not,” Eric said.

  “So, are we headed in the right direction?” Brontosaurus asked. “Where’s that signal?”

  “Still due east,” Mickey said.

  The group fell quiet after that. They’d hung out together for twenty years, after all, and exhausted most avenues of conversation. In fact, most conversations these days were retreads of those that had taken place at some point in the past: there were only so many things they could talk about, after all. Eric’s Turg comment, for example, was something he brought up at least once a year. And yes, he could remember all his previous utterances regarding interstellar travel, thanks to his neural network.

  The three teams marched on throughout those plains without encountering any other life, or signs of Banthar occupation. And it was a long day.

  Finally, after thirty-five and a half hours had passed since their arrival, the sun started to set. They marched on through two hours of twilight, and then Marlborough had the team switch to passive mode—th
is meant thermal and night vision, no LIDAR or echolocation.

  The landscape looked like a blue mass in front of him, while the Devastators were bright red humanoid-shaped blobs. Bambi was a big spider, and Tread a horse. Traps, in T2 well behind him, looked like an ostrich with those two legs and no arms.

  Slate’s voice came over the comm. “You know when you’re shingling a rooftop, and you’re hammering nails into the shingles, and you—”

  “Who still shingles their roofs?” Dunnigan interrupted. “Don’t you yanks use solar panels?”

  Slate ignored him. “You’re hammering nails, right? And you miss, and hit your thumb with a hammer? We look like those thumbs at the moment.”

  “Why couldn’t you just say, ‘we stand out like sore thumbs on the thermal band?’” Frogger asked.

  “Because I hate clichés,” Slate said. “Especially ancient ones that date from your era.”

  “The temperature is dropping rapidly,” Bambi said. “We’re going to stand out even more, soon.”

  The ground became black shortly as it emanated all of its heat. A gentle, alkane snow began to fall, illuminated by the dim ambient light of a small moon that crested the horizon.

  “Well this is nice,” Slate said. “Looks like we’re going to have a Yellow Christmas, y’all.”

  “A Yellow Christmas?” Brontosaurus said. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s when you get your White Christmas pissed all over by the in-laws,” Slate said.

  “Talking from experience?” Crusher said.

  “Nope,” Slate said. “Never married. But I have a few buddies. You know, friends that you get when you actually have a social life?”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t know about that,” Crusher said.

  “Well, I rap about it in one of my old songs,” Slate said. “I’ll see if I can find the album for you.”

  “No thanks,” Crusher said. “I don’t like rap.”

  “How can you not like rap?” Slate said. “It’s the defining musical form. It paved the way for all the styles that came after it. Much mimicked, never maligned.”

  “Well I’m going to malign it,” Crusher said. “Because I like myopo music.”

  “Myopo is based on rap!” Slate said.

  “The Ravens got something,” Eagleeye announced.

  “All teams, halt,” Marlborough said. “What do you got?”

  “Well, honestly, I can’t tell yet,” Eagleeye said. “Something is littering the far horizon. I see cylinders, pipes, wing-like shapes. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the wreckage of a ship of some sort.”

  Eric switched to the point of view of one of the Ravens. It was difficult to make out anything in the dark, but he could see tiny shapes on the horizon, vaguely outlined by the moonlight. His first impression was of prehistoric bones, as if some huge dinosaur had died here. But then he spotted a few shapes that were too regular to be organic, such as the cylinders and pipes Eagleeye had mentioned, and one piece that indeed looked like a wingtip.

  “Judging from the signal strength, I’d say the microwave is sourced from there,” Mickey said.

  “Send one of the Ravens forward,” Marlborough ordered.

  Eric watched from the POV of the scout. Initially it sped forward but as it neared the ruins, the craft slowed.

  “Permission to activate LIDAR?” Eagleeye asked.

  “Yes, but I want the lowest possible intensity,” Marlborough said. “Last thing we need is to light up our position for kilometers around.”

  “Understood,” Eagleeye said. The scout moved downward, toward the debris, and then activated a small, localized LIDAR spotlight, which it directed at the wreckage. It began to weave back and forth, slowly mapping out the crash site. On his overhead map, the white outlines of the different pieces took shape. The carnage strewn across the plains definitely resembled a crashed ship of some kind, judging from its overall form. He could see the vague outline of four wings, plus a central fuselage section.

  “Has to be a Banthar craft,” Bambi said.

  “That would be a good assumption,” Marlborough said. “Eagleeye, send in the second scout. Work with Mickey… see if you can pinpoint the microwave source.”

  The second scout moved forward, while the first continued to map the debris.

  Eric switched to the second Raven’s viewpoint, and watched as that unit moved to the rear of the crumpled fuselage.

  “Seems to be coming from in here,” Eagleeye said. “Permission to enter the fuselage?”

  “Granted,” Marlborough said.

  The scout moved lower, over a section where the fuselage had collapsed entirely. Then it turned south, and entered an intact portion of the main cabin. Inside, between broken conduits, was a small hexagonal object. Blue strips of light pulsed in sync on the left and right sides.

  “There’s our source,” Eagleeye said.

  “What the hell is it?” Hicks asked.

  “No idea,” Eagleeye said. “Could be anything. Maybe even a black box of some kind.”

  “If not a black box, a distress signal of some kind,” Brontosaurus said.

  “If that’s true, why haven’t the Banthar retrieved it?” Mickey asked.

  “Maybe they’re on their way,” Traps answered.

  “Is there a way to tell how recent the wreckage is?” Marlborough said.

  “Look at the LIDAR map of the crash site,” Frogger said. “If the wreckage had been here for any length of time, most of the bottom portions would have been buried by soil, I think. But they’re not. There’s also no sign of weathering, either, against any of the exposed pieces. So, my guess is yes, it’s recent. Within the last month, at least. Maybe within the last few days.”

  “That would explain why the Banthar have yet to retrieve the black box, if that’s what it is…” Dickson said.

  “All right, I’ve seen enough,” Marlborough said. “Recall the Ravens.”

  “Do you want me to retrieve the microwave source?” Eagleeye asked.

  “No,” Marlborough said. “If it is a black box, it’ll lead the Banthar right to us.”

  Eagleeye flew the Ravens back to T1.

  “So what now, Sarge?” Brontosaurus asked.

  “We turn back,” Marlborough said. “Return to the forest, and make our way to the rift site. We’ve completed our first recon.”

  “But we didn’t find anything,” Eagleeye said.

  “What we found is good enough,” Marlborough said. “It indicates the Banthar were here at one point in the past, at least. And I don’t want to wait around for them to return. T1, leapfrog T2 and T3, and take the lead, heading west. T2, leapfrog T3 after T1 is in place.”

  Eric was about to turn around when Slate spoke up.

  “Uh, guys, what are those two black dots the Raven scouts are picking up on the eastern horizon?” Slate said.

  “Belay the previous order,” Marlborough said.

  Eric switched to the POV of one of the scouts, and zoomed in on the horizon above the crash site. He saw two black dots. They seemed stationary in the sky.

  “Eagleeye, what are those?” Marlborough continued.

  “No idea,” Eagleeye said. “I can’t tell if they’re organic, or machine. Nor even if they’re approaching. Not without giving away our position with a laser sight pulse.”

  “Drop, teams!” Marlborough said. “Lower your profiles! And switch to stealth mode!”

  Eric threw himself to the ground and rolled onto his back. He deployed his ballistic shield and held it over his body, and then reduced his battery output, cutting off all power to his servomotors, leaving only critical systems active in his AI core, and one external camera. With the shield on top like that, his reduced thermal venting would be mostly hidden.

  He angled his antennae away from the two bogeys, toward the teams behind him. He’d still be able to communicate with the few mechs in front, because of the fifty-meter default range regardless of antennae position.

  “Dee, get
those Ravagers on the ground, and in stealth mode,” Eric ordered.

  “Already done,” his Accomp replied.

  “I feel like a knight buried in an ancient tomb,” Slate said. “You know the kind: sarcophagi with statues of medieval knights holding shields over their bodies carved on top.”

  “If you don’t shut up, that mech will certainly be your sarcophagus,” Bambi said.

  Eric returned his attention to the Raven’s video feed. The scout had dropped to the ground like the mechs, and had probably cut most systems, save for its camera, and comm node. The camera was angled upwards, so that it was still trained on the two dots.

  “Maybe it was a bad idea to use LIDAR after all,” Brontosaurus commented.

  “If they were tracking the microwave source, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Crusher said.

  “Can we tell which way those dots are moving yet?” Frogger asked.

  “They’re heading toward us, I think,” Eagleeye said.

  Sure enough, the objects became bigger, and soon Eric saw the reds and blues of thermal venting. To his eyes, they looked a little like humans in wingsuits: a central cylinder, with two pairs of prongs jutting out at ninety-degree angles from the fore and aft, with a concave membrane cutting the two on each side. As they got closer, he realized they were bigger than mere humans in wingsuits. Far bigger.

  “They’re transports of some kind, I think,” Eagleeye transmitted. “This is what we were looking for. Evidence of Banthar activity.”

  “Finally, some proper recon,” Slate said.

  “I think they’re headed straight for us!” Bambi said.

  “All right, cease all transmissions,” Marlborough ordered. “If we’re attacked, reenable communications, exit stealth mode, and return fire.”

  Eric shut down his transmitter, and the video feed from the Raven winked out. As did all the status indicators of his fellow team members. They still showed up on his external map, but only because it had stored their last known positions.

  He angled his head and cameras upward as far as he was able so that he could peer past the top edge of the shield above him.

  And then he waited.

  He couldn’t see the two approaching transports, not yet. Several seconds passed. A minute. He began to wonder if the transports had changed their mind and veered off in another direction, but then he saw the outline of one of them. It looked massive as it hovered into view, its thermals still outlining a vaguely wingsuit-like shape.