Alien War Trilogy 1: Hoplite Page 2

  The chief’s eyes became distant, and he nodded ever so faintly. “The burden of command.”

  “By the way,” Rade said. “Were you able to retrieve my ATLAS unit?”

  “We were,” Facehopper said. “We followed the trail you left in the sand. Led us right to it.”

  “Good, I hate to lose an AI.”

  Facehopper pursed his lips. “You know, about that. We mostly recovered the mech so that it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands. It’s scheduled to be decommissioned.”

  “Oh.”

  Facehopper rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, mate. We’ve got some new mech classes in the pipeline. Big, bad beasts of machines that’ll make you forget the ATLAS units ever existed. And, well, I can’t say much about it now, but we have a mission coming up. A big one. Get some rest. And try to stay on the LC’s good side, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  “I’ll try,” Rade said. “No guarantees.”

  two

  The next morning Rade felt well enough to join the rest of his platoon in the Granada’s gym. The frigate was Trakehner class, designed to travel fast and light, meaning that the gym was relatively small, but the MOTHs made do. Though the vessel was outfitted with several external attachments as part of its Sino-Korean merchant trader guise, the inner layout was unchanged. Probably a good thing. He didn’t think he could stand to be aboard a ship without a gym. Calisthenics, while a great warmup, could only take one so far in terms of sheer muscle mass.

  Rade took over his leading petty officer duties, and led the platoon through a series of pushup and ab exercises. When they finished their main sets, the men split into three groups, with the first congregating around the bench press, the second the squat rack, and the third the pull-up bar. The gym aboard the Granada utilized real weights in the form of thick metal plates, not the tiny “gravity inducers” found on some of the smaller vessels.

  Rade approached the bench press. The newest member of the platoon, Keelhaul, was currently attempting to press four plates per side. Keelhaul was a seasoned sniper reassigned from MOTH Team Eight. Grappler was the second new member, also from Team Eight, where he had served as a mech specialist and heavy gunner, though so far in Team Seven he had only been recognized for the latter role. He was one of Keelhaul’s spotters on the press.

  “Come on, push it!” Tahoe said. He was spotting Keelhaul on the other side. “Push that pussy!”

  Tahoe’s callsign was actually Cyclone, but Rade knew him from since before the Teams and mentally referred to him by his real name, unlike the others. Tahoe was a Navajo, with a wife and two children back home. His official position was that of heavy gunner. He certainly had the build for it.

  Keelhaul shoved the bar upward, completing a rep.

  “Three!” Grappler announced.

  Keelhaul began to lower the bar.

  “He’s going for another!” Bender said. The well-muscled black man barely fit his T-shirt, and his upper chest was covered in heavy chains. His front teeth were capped in gold, big hoops hung from both ears, piercings tipped each eyebrow, a labret studded the skin under his lower lip, and several rings decorated each finger. All of that jewelry—chains, hoops, labrets—was made of gold. He usually didn’t wear most of it during actual combat operations, but while on base, or aboard a starship, he flaunted it. Rade had figured out that the jewelry served the same purpose as the beard the others grew—a sign of their elite status.

  Bender was the lead drone operator, meaning he issued orders to the combat robots and drones that supported the platoon.

  Keelhaul touched the bar to his chest and pushed. The weight didn’t move. He tried again, the vein in his forehead bulging. No good.

  Tahoe and Grappler helped Keelhaul lift and rerack the weight.

  “Good try,” Grappler said.

  “You call that a good try?” Tahoe said. “I felt like I was curling the damn weight for him.”

  Snakeoil stepped forward. The short man was one of the comm officers. He was built like a tank, most likely due to hauling around all that heavy comm equipment.

  Snakeoil interlocked his palms, cracked his knuckles, and then made a dismissive, almost contemptuous sweeping gesture toward the bench press.

  Keelhaul immediately vacated it and Snakeoil took his place.

  “Five plates per side, please,” Snakeoil said.

  “Oh ho,” Bender said. “He’s going to embarrass himself again.”

  Snakeoil ignored him. He shook out his muscles, as if trying to get rid of knots. It was his way of limbering up. “I said five per side.”

  As Tahoe and Grappler added an extra plate to either end of the barbell, Fret came over from the pull-up area to watch.

  “This is going to be good.” Fret was also a comm officer, yet unlike Snakeoil, he was completely opposite build-wise, coming in at very tall and lanky. The comm equipment he carried was just as heavy as Snakeoil’s, but he likely offloaded most of the weight to his exoskeleton during operations.

  Snakeoil spread chalk over his hands and then lay back on the bench. “Help me unrack it,” he instructed the spotters. “After that, don’t intervene unless I say.”

  Other members of the platoon wandered over to watch.

  “He’s attempting five again?” someone asked.

  “Yup,” Rade answered.

  Snakeoil stared at the racked barbell above him. He took several deep breathes, then punched his chest with a fist three times in rapid succession, grunting loudly each time.

  “Love how he psychs himself up,” someone said.

  Snakeoil’s arms shot up and he wrapped both hands around the bar as fast as he could, as if he was afraid his body would change its mind. “Go!”

  His muscles flexed.

  Tahoe and Grappler quickly lifted either end of the bar off the rack and then released their grip so that Snakeoil held it above his body on his own. The two spotters kept their arms near the bar in case it proved necessary to catch the weight.

  Rade touched Bender on the arm to get his attention, and then pointed at the rack. Bender nodded, quickly taking up a position behind the bench near Snakeoil’s head so that he was ready to offer assistance from that quarter as well.

  Snakeoil slowly lowered the bar. The metal bent slightly beneath the burden of the five plates weighing down either end, two hundred twenty five pounds per side. Including the bar, the whole thing weighed four hundred and ninety five pounds.

  When the barbell reached his chest, the muscles in Snakeoil’s neck and arms corded, and it became obvious he was pushing with everything he had.

  But the bar refused to move.

  Bender smirked. “That’s right, baby. Come on. Call mommy for help.”

  Rade shot Bender a dirty look. That wasn’t a light weight. Rade had hoped to quell any sarcasm from him by assigning Bender the topmost spotter position. It hadn’t worked, apparently.

  When Bender noticed Rade’s disapproval, his smirk instantly evaporated.

  Tahoe and Grappler touched either end, obviously intending to render assistance.

  “Get back!” Snakeoil snarled.

  Tahoe and Grappler exchanged worried looks, then released their grips, though they kept their hands close. Bender, too, was ready to grab the center portion of the bar.

  Snakeoil sucked in his belly and pushed again. His back arched dangerously, and Rade worried the comm officer was about to throw a disk. The muscles in his neck stood out even greater than before, adding several millimeters of thickness.

  The bar slowly rose. One centimeter. Three. Five. But there it froze, five centimeters from his chest, and several more from the top of the rack, his elbows bent at an eighty-degree angle.

  “Help,” Snakeoil squeaked.

  Tahoe, Grappler, and Bender all interceded, and in moments Snakeoil racked the weight.

  The squat comm officer lay there on the bench, panting for several moments.

  Bender was snickering. He tried to cover his mouth when he caught R
ade’s eye, and he ended up turning around as his shoulders rolled with barely restrained laughter.

  “How’s your lower back?” Tahoe asked the question that was foremost on Rade’s mind.

  Snakeoil kicked his legs out to the side and sat up. “Never better.”

  “Next time wear a belt,” Grappler said.

  Snakeoil sniffed. “Belts are for pussies.” He abruptly stiffened, grimacing as if feeling a jolt in his back. Then he slumped again, and smiled wryly. “Just kidding.”

  “Good job.” Rade patted him on the shoulder.

  Bender turned around. He wore the biggest smirk. “Yeah, good job man,” he said sarcastically.

  Rade ignored him, and ran his gaze across his fellow warriors, his eyes lingering upon the newest members of the team, Keelhaul and Grappler.

  “You see what just happened here?” Rade continued. “Snakeoil displayed the qualities of a true MOTH. A man who refused to give up so very easily, but who also knew when it was time to enlist the aid of his friends. Because not giving up is one thing, but being needlessly stubborn, at the expense of one’s own life, or one’s platoon... well, let’s just say there’s no place for behavior like that in the platoon.”

  “Are you talking about your own behavior in the last battle?” Trace piped in. He was East Indian. Bengali. And like Rade, his specialty was sniping.

  “I wasn’t being stubborn,” Rade said. “Or putting the platoon at risk. I saw one of the enemy trying to get away. I was the closest, so I intercepted.”

  “But when you were ambushed, you should have let him go,” Trace said.

  “I would have,” Rade agreed. “Except that they had me trapped.”

  “But you didn’t even radio for help!”

  “I tried,” Rade said. “But my comm node was damaged.”

  Trace remained silent.

  Rade remembered what Facehopper had told him.

  You’re going to have to explain what you did back there to the platoon. That will be your punishment.

  Punishment indeed.

  “You’re right,” Rade admitted. “I should have taken someone else with me. There’s a reason why we use the buddy system. We’re brothers here, not lone wolves. I let you guys down. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. As your LPO, you deserve better than this.” He pursed his lips, and lowered his gaze. “Because of my actions, you were forced to scour the desert for me for two days. You were probably worried sick.”

  “Nah, not really,” Bender joked. He punched Rade on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back, boss.”

  Rade smiled slightly. “I’m glad you’ll have me.”

  He noticed TJ, the second drone operator, scowling from the squat rack. Rivets and servomotors were tattooed along the bulging muscles of his left arm, while military robots decorated his right side. An Atlas moth inked his neck, its wings reaching toward his chest before vanishing under the low collar that showcased the deep divide between his upper pectorals.

  The tattooed Italian had vehemently opposed Rade’s promotion, and was likely still jealous Rade had been the one promoted to leading petty officer over him. Rade would just have to prove to TJ that he was worthy of the position.

  Nothing’s ever easy.

  three

  Rade sat in the small briefing area aboard the Granada with Alpha platoon.

  The officer in charge of Alpha and Bravo platoons, MOTH Team Seven, stood at the lectern and towered over them all. Lieutenant Commander Braggs was in his late thirties, though he looked older because of the deep lines graven into the angular planes of his face. Those lines were partially balanced out by his body, which had the look of a hardened athlete.

  Rade met the officer’s gaze steadily, remembering well the chewing out he had received from him a few days before. Braggs caught his eye, and Rade inclined his head slightly. The lieutenant commander nodded in return.

  “Members of Alpha Platoon,” Braggs began. “We’re going to rendezvous with Task Group 68.2 in three weeks time. We will proceed with the task group to the Arcturus system at the periphery of UC territory. There, we will travel through the outgoing Gate to the unexplored 11-Aquarii system, one-hundred lightyears from Arcturus, to determine why two Builder ships, and the warship sent to escort them, have gone missing. Alpha Platoon has been called upon to act in a reserve capacity.”

  “A reserve capacity?” Bender said. “As in, we’re just going to sit on the sidelines?”

  “That is correct,” the lieutenant commander responded coolly. “We will act when called upon. But until then, we are merely bystanders. Maybe we won’t even be utilized at all.”

  “Can I ask the name of the missing warship?” Lui asked. He was the resident Asian American, and was one of the official mech pilots of Alpha Platoon: when access to mechs proved limited, he was one of the three usually assigned a machine.

  “The John A. McDonald,” Braggs answered.

  “John A. McDonald...” Lui tapped his lower lip. His eyes defocused, and it was obvious he was accessing data via his Implant. “A Decatur class supercarrier. One of the most powerful starships ever made, with three times the armaments and twice the starfighter capacity of the Rickover class. Hell of a ship to go missing.”

  “Yes,” Braggs agreed.

  “Obviously we don’t think the Sino-Koreans are involved,” Tahoe said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have told us even half of what you just did, Lieutenant Commander. Operational security, fear of moles, and whatnot. You would have said, ‘we’re going to Arcturus, boys,’ and that’s it. Then again, maybe the moles have already leaked the information.”

  “You’re absolutely right, on all accounts,” the LC said. “The Special Collection Service does not believe the Sino-Koreans are involved. And the SKs know about our mission already, thanks to their moles. In any case, I am authorized to show you something. I must warn you though, the following video is highly classified, and is not to be shared outside of this room.”

  A retinal video feed filled Rade’s vision. He floated above a G-type main-sequence star at relatively close range. It was white, the same color as Earth’s sun, Sol. He tried to remember why Sol appeared yellow from Earth. Something about Rayleigh scattering... he would have to look it up on his Implant later.

  Instinctively, Rade tried to save the video stream, but he realized that not only was the feed tagged as unrecordable, but Braggs had disabled video recording in his Implant entirely.

  “This is the only image we have from 11-Aquarii, a year after the arrival of the John A. McDonald. We acquired it from a civilian, who deployed an experimental telescope that used the Slipstream to 11-Aquarii itself as a gravitational lens.”

  Slipstreams were the holes in spacetime that connected different systems together in that region of space. They could only be traversed by means of human-made Gates, massive, ring-like structures that encircled the Slipstreams and balanced out the gravitational forces.

  “Observe,” Braggs continued.

  In front of the white star, the contour of what looked like a UC supercarrier moved in front of the sun. Several moments passed, until behind it another object slowly crept into view, silhouetted against the bright surface—a black dodecahedron, about twice as big as the supercarrier.

  The Lieutenant Commander paused the video and skipped forward some frames. He zoomed in.

  Upon the uppermost edge of the supercarrier was a slight discoloration set against the sun. As the LC advanced the video, that discoloration bloomed. Like an explosion.

  “Some of the scientists believe what we’re looking at is a coronal discharge from the sun,” Braggs said. “That the supercarrier just so happened to superimpose as it flew past. However most of the senior command believe it’s an explosion, caused by the pursuing vessel.”

  “That ship design isn’t in any of our databases,” Lui said. “Are we talking a new race of alien beings here? A first contact scenario?”

  “That’s the operating assumption, yes,” Braggs said.
/>
  “Have we sent any advance drones to scout the system?” Bomb asked. He was the second black man in the platoon after Bender, though he wasn’t nearly as muscular. He shaved his head on either side in a fade pattern, so that a dark mohawk sprouted from the centerline. Like Lui, he was a mech pilot.

  “The Special Collection Service has determined that no return Gate exists on the other side of the Slipstream,” the LC answered. “So even if we did send drones, none could return to transmit their discoveries. There will of course be a Builder accompanying Task Group 68.2, which will begin work on the return Gate while the remaining ships investigate the system.”

  “So we’re traveling into an uncharted system,” Bomb said. “One potentially owned by an alien race. And we’ll be trapped there until the Builder creates a return Gate.”

  “That is correct,” Braggs replied.

  “Wait a second,” Lui interjected. “We’re bringing a fleet of destroyers into a potentially alien jurisdiction. Wouldn’t that be considered an act of war from the point of view of the alien party?”

  “I have to emphasize that this is an exploratory mission,” Braggs replied. “The warships are present only for our protection.”

  “Lui’s right,” Manic said. “If a similar situation happened in a UC controlled system, with invading warships arriving from a remote Slipstream, the UC would consider it an act of war.”

  It seemed the mech pilots were teaming up that day, because Manic, like Lui and Bomb, was another official pilot of the war machines. A port-wine stain above his eye vaguely resembled a moth—the insect. Manic claimed the stain was the whole reason he had joined the service in the first place. “I was destined to become a MOTH,” he often said.

  “It’s an act of war only if the arriving ships initiate aggressive action,” the LC stated.

  “Well sure,” Manic said. “But does anyone else see how this could quickly spiral out of control? We’re going to have a second alien war on our hands. And we barely won the first, I’d like to remind you all.”