Occasionally, I spot the head of the Arbiter or Hoplite or Warden as they patrol. I’m sure their sonar cuts right through the driving fog.
Then Carl lets out half a scream.
Chuck-chuck—
A dark shape lunges out of the mist and knocks over his tall walker. Carl rolls away. For a split second, I see a scuttling mantis the size of a pickup truck cutting through the air toward me, barbed razor arms up and poised. Houdini lurches backward and rears up, pawing the air with its front legs.
“Arrivederci!” shouts Leo and I hear him unlatch his exoskeleton from Houdini. Then Cherrah and I are thrown onto the hard-packed snow and into the driving mist. A serrated leg needles into the snow a foot from my face. It feels like my right arm is caught in a vice. I turn and see a gray hand has got hold of me and realize that Nine Oh Two is dragging me and Cherrah out from under Houdini.
The two massive walkers grapple above us. Houdini’s cowcatcher keeps the scrabbling claws of the mantis at bay, but the spider tank isn’t as agile as its ancestor. I hear the chuck-chuck of a large-caliber machine gun. Shards of metal spray off the mantis, but it keeps scratching and clawing at Houdini like a feral animal.
Then I hear a familiar sizzle and the sickening pop of three or four nearby anchor blasts. Pluggers are here. Without Houdini we are in serious trouble—pinned to the spot.
“Take cover!” I shout.
Cherrah and Leo dive behind a big pine. As I go to join them, I see Carl peeking out from behind a tree trunk.
“Carl,” I say. “Mount up and go get help from Beta squad!”
The pale soldier gracefully remounts his fallen tall walker. A second later, I see its legs scissoring through the mist as he runs for the nearest squad. A plugger fires at him as he goes and I hear it ding against one of the tall walker legs. I put my back against a tree and scan for the plugger firing pods. It’s hard to see anything. Spotlights slash my face from the clearing as the mantis and spider tank battle it out.
Houdini is losing.
The mantis slices open Houdini’s belly net and our supplies spew out onto the ground like intestines. An old helmet rolls past me and clanks off a tree hard enough to gouge the bark. Houdini’s intention light glows blood red through the fog. It’s hurt, but the old bastard is tough.
“Mathilda,” I gasp into my radio. “Status. Advise.”
For five seconds I get nothing. Then Mathilda whispers, “No time. Sorry Cormac. You’re on your own.”
Cherrah peeks around a tree trunk and motions to me. The Warden 333 leaps in front of her just as a plugger launches. The metal slug hits the Warden hard enough to spin the humanoid robot in the air. It lands in the snow, sporting a new dent in its frame but otherwise fine. The plugger projectile is now an unrecognizable hunk of smoking metal. Built to burrow into flesh, its drill proboscis is crooked and blunted from an impact with metal.
Cherrah disappears, taking better cover, and I start to breathe again.
We have to mount Houdini if we’re going to make it any farther. But the spider tank isn’t doing so well. A chunk of its turret has been sliced and is hanging cockeyed. The cowcatcher is covered in shining streaks of fresh metal where the mantis blades have scratched through the patina of rust and moss. Worst of all, it’s dragging a rear leg where the mantis sliced a hydraulic line. Searing hot fans of high-pressure oil shoot from the hose, melting the snow into greasy mud.
Nine Oh Two sprints out of the mist and leaps onto the mantis’s back. With methodical punches, he begins to attack the small hump that is nestled between that wicked tangle of serrated arms.
“Fall back. Consolidate the line,” comes the command from Lonnie Wayne over the army-wide radio.
From the sound of it, the spider tank squads to our right and left are in equally deep shit. Here on the ground I can hardly see anything. More plugger shots ring out, barely audible under the wheezing hydraulic whine of Houdini’s motors as it does battle in the clearing.
The sound paralyzes me. I remember Jack’s blood-filled eyes and I can’t move. The trees around me are iron-hard arms poking out of the snowy ground. The woods are a confusion of swirling mist and dark shapes and Houdini’s frantically sweeping spotlights.
I hear a grunt and a distant scream as somebody catches a plugger. Craning my neck, I can’t see anybody. The only thing I see is Houdini’s round red intention light streaking through the mist.
The screaming goes up an octave as the plugger starts drilling. It’s coming from all around me and from nowhere. I clutch my M4 to my chest and breathe in panting gasps and scan for my invisible enemies.
A streak of blurry light cuts through the mist thirty meters away as Cherrah pours her flamethrower into a mess of stumpers. I hear the muted crackle as they explode in the night.
“Cormac,” calls Cherrah.
My legs come unfrozen the second I hear her voice. Her safety means more to me than my own. A lot more.
I force myself to move toward Cherrah. Over my shoulder, I catch sight of Nine Oh Two clinging to the mantis’s back like a shadow as it twists and claws. Then Houdini’s intention light blinks to green. The mantis drops to the ground, legs quaking.
Yes!
I’ve seen it before. The lumbering machine has just been lobotomized. Its legs still work, but without commands they just lie there and shake.
“Form on Houdini!” I shout. “Form up!”
Houdini crouches in the muddy clearing, surrounded by gouged-up chunks of earth and pieces of trees that have shattered like matchsticks. The spider tank’s heavy armor has been scratched and sliced everywhere. It’s like somebody dropped Houdini into a fucking blender.
But our comrade isn’t beaten yet.
“Houdini, initiate command mode. Human control. Defensive array,” I say to the machine. With a groan of overheated motors, the machine crouches and mashes its cowcatcher into the ground, digging an indentation. Then it slowly pulls its legs in together and hikes its belly up about five feet. Armored legs locked together over a crude foxhole, with the body of the spider tank now forming a portable bunker.
Leo, Cherrah, and I clamber underneath the damaged machine, and the Freeborn squad takes up positions in the snow around us. We settle our rifles on the armored leg plates and peer into the darkness.
“Carl!?” I shout to the snow. “Carl?”
No Carl.
What’s left of my squad huddles under the soft green glow of Houdini’s intention light, each of us realizing that this is only the beginning of a very long night.
“Fucking Carl, man,” says Leo. “Can’t believe they got Carl.”
Then a dark shape comes running from the mist. Sprinting at top speed. Rifle barrels swing to intercept it.
“Don’t fire!” I shout.
I recognize the silly humping gait. It’s Carl Lewandowski and he’s panicked. Instead of running, the guy is skipping. He reaches us and dives into the snow under Houdini. His sensory package is gone. His tall walker is gone. His pack is gone.
About the only thing Carl still has is a rifle.
“What the fuck’s going on out there, Carl? Where’s your shit, man? Where’s the reinforcements?”