Sergeant Lancell noticed the red glow of the barrel just as he watched the aliens take cover for the first time since their attack. A smile crept across his face and he yelled.
“Have a taste, you sons’a bitches!”
There was a flash of brown beside him and he turned his head to see the colonel booking it back across the bay to the ship.
“Shit.” Sergeant Lancell fired off another burst at a brave invader that stuck its bug-like head out from behind a crate and then he bolted after the officer.
“Lift off! Lift off!” he yelled, vaulting over the rail and up the loading ramp.
The ship lifted into the air and the roof opened to allow their exit. The ramp in back closed and after a few minutes the on-board AI appeared on a screen. In a surreal moment, the digitized human bust politely advised them of the safety protocols in the same manner as the AI flight attendants in commercial crafts and announced that they would be breaking orbit in five minutes. The advanced, self-learning operating system that precisely guided them off-world and toward the nearest transit station urged them to remain strapped in and cautioned them on tomfoolery while in the gravity-free environment of space minutes after they escaped from deadly, metallic alien abominations. The safety briefing ended with some forgettable AI-inspired wise-crack as the ship broke free of the planet’s gravity and entered space.
The crew exhaled for what felt like the first time.
“Sergeant Lancell.”
The sergeant looked over to the voice. The red-haired soldier’s face peeked out from inside a Zero-G medical containment suit that kept her blood from floating about the interior of the ship. She nodded at him. “Thank you.”
“Hey, I’m the one who ran out and grabbed you.” Private Holiday was strapped in beside her and looking the soldier over. “Also, please don’t bleed to death inside that giant condom, because I would really love to take you out for a beer for saving all of our asses back there.”
The soldier looked over at the private and gave him an awkward half-smile. “My wounds have already closed up, so the danger of bleeding out is slim at this point. However, I have sustained tremendous injury. If you do not mind, Sergeant, I am going to drop consciousness for a while to let my body recuperate faster. Don’t be alarmed by my deathly appearance, my Pilot is monitoring my vitals. I will be fine.”
Sergeant Lancell stared at her for a moment, trying to comprehend her words. He glanced at the colonel, who shrugged. “Uh… carry on, soldier.”
She gave him another nod and then closed her eyes, quickly drifting to sleep and growing pale.
Private Holiday looked on in horror. “Oh my god, is she a robot?” He scanned her up and down and then turned away with a smile. “Nope, don’t even care if she’s a robot. We’re dating.”
Max scanned the room and the surrounding eighty yards five times before pulling out his bed and activating the wall safe behind his headboard. He shut off all power to his apartment appliances and routed it to the headset that plugged into the wall port. A glass of whiskey and 400 milligrams of Polycodone relaxed him enough to endure the thin, shaky neural link his home-engineered Chair would establish for him.
Max breathed through clenched teeth as the connection linked. “Where are you?”
Outskirts of the Corthax region. I’ve whipped these metal buggers into a frenzy; they’re ready to go on Warpath with humanity. They just need a ride. How did our Beast do?
“She’s still alive, thankfully. With everything we’ve been through; all those men and women that died at Preston… losing Nikki would have made it so much worse.”
The fallen at Fort Preston did not die in vain, Shogun. We showed humanity they cannot rely on AI technology as their sole defense… and we sent a message to Central Command that the ASH soldiers cannot be discarded and thrown in the ashes of the old world. We did this for the sixty-seven that died ingloriously, with no memorial. With this new war, we will finally have a purpose.
Max’s smile was all teeth. “Command is already pulling in all the others from whatever outskirt posting they’ve been stuck at for the last fifteen years. The stored embryos are being thawed; I’ve already been placed in charge of overseeing training of the second generation of ASH Soldiers. Even Minister Dawn was forced into a concession after Nikki’s successful evacuation on Preston… saving so many in that hellhole. By the time your new friends start invading populated locations, we’ll have enough ASH Soldiers to push them back and secure our future in the eyes of the public. Then, when we’re on every civilized planet, we’ll bring you back, to take command of your sisters, my dear Ryoko.”
Human Strain
Benjamin Cheah
As the hunters fell upon him, Sergeant Major Abel Santiago prayed his instincts were right.
They appeared so swiftly, so silently, it was as though they had grown from the shadows at the end of the tunnel. Their skins colored in midnight hues, Santiago saw them only as moving blurs. Pressed against the wall, he counted the outlines. Two, three, four, eight, twelve. This wasn’t an ordinary patrol. It was a reconnaissance in force.
Santiago breathed as deeply as he dared. If they were going to pass over him, it wouldn’t do if he passed out. If they were going to attack him, he needed oxygen to fight. To flee.
“Boss, what’s the call?” a voice whispered in his head. It was Staff Sergeant Sera Meyers, his second-in-command.
Santiago swallowed, mind-keyed his quantum communicator, let his suit translate his thoughts into words. “Stay put. Let them pass, but prepare for the worst.”
“Acknowledged.”
The rest of his team were spread out behind him. They had cover. Little nooks and debris to hide behind or under. All Santiago had was the wall. If anyone was going to be detected, it was him. But if they passed over him, they were safe.
Santiago adjusted his position just so, pressing his chest against the wall, turning his head to watch the hunters. His suit’s active camouflage layer shifted, mimicking the colour and texture of the wall. Every fibre of his being screamed that he was giving his back to them. But as so many people had learned the hard way, hunters were likelier to recognize the front profile of a human under active camouflage than the back. Not that his animal brain was convinced.
They came.
Half of their number crawled along the floor on all fours. The other half traversed the ceiling, inverted. This close, he heard the sound of their passage. Claws going click-click-click, tails swishing softly, the almost inaudible thuk as their adhesion pads engaged and disengaged. They were closer, closer, closer.
One of them broke off, taking to the wall. Right in front of Santiago. It approached him, beheld him. Its skull was a smooth dome interrupted by a line of dark unblinking eyes. Massive jaws jutted out under its head. The hunter growled, raising a paw lined with sharp claws. Mounted under its wrist was a personal laser. Lifting its tail, Santiago saw it terminate in a fine, almost invisible, stinger.
Nothing to see here, all you are seeing are bits of circuitry and wires, go away.
The hunter stared at him, perhaps running through its sensor suite, trying to reconcile multiple anomalous data sets. Santiago kept still. He had to keep still. Hunters roamed in packs, and they would not, could not, stray from their packs. He just had to hold on.
The hunter cocked its head and noticed its pack-mates scampering off. It took to the floor and raced to catch up.