Date: 2019-02-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Science Fiction; Space Opera
Description: An impossible enemy. A fleet surrounded. One AI's struggle to save his machine brothers and sisters--and humanity itself--from complete destruction. Jain and his fleet of elite AI warships hurry to Earth's defense when an alien empire known as the Link stages an all-out attack. Though his fleet is equipped with the most powerful weapons tech ever developed, with enough firepower to raze an entire moon base, even Jain's mighty vessels prove no match for the enemy. When unexpected allies show up, the tide seems to turn in his favor. But will it be enough? Perhaps. The aliens were expecting to fi
Publisher: Independently published

The Link

AI EMPIRE BOOK 1

Isaac Hooke

Contents

Books by Isaac Hooke

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Want Free Books?

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

In Closing

Copyright © 2019 by Isaac Hooke

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.IsaacHooke.com

Books by Isaac Hooke

Military Science Fiction - Mind Refurb Universe

AI Empire

The Link

AI Fleet

Forerunner

Devastator

Peace Maker

AI Reborn Trilogy

Refurbished

Reloaded

Rebooted

Bolt Eaters Trilogy

Reactivated

Reforged

Redeemed

Battle Harem

Battle Harem 1

Battle Harem 2

Battle Harem 3

Military Science Fiction - ATLAS Universe

ATLAS Trilogy

(published by 47North)

ATLAS

ATLAS 2

ATLAS 3

Alien War Trilogy

Hoplite

Zeus

Titan

Argonauts

Bug Hunt

You Are Prey

Alien Empress

Quantum Predation

Robot Dust Bunnies

City of Phants

Rade’s Fury

Mechs vs. Dinosaurs

A Captain's Crucible

Flagship

Test of Mettle

Cradle of War

Planet Killer

Worlds at War

Space Opera

Star Warrior Quadrilogy

Star Warrior

Bender of Worlds

He Who Crosses Death

Doom Wielder

Science Fiction

The Forever Gate Series

The Dream

A Second Chance

The Mirror Breaks

They Have Wakened Death

I Have Seen Forever

Rebirth

Walls of Steel

The Pendulum Swings

The Last Stand

Epic Fantasy

Monster Tamer

Breaker

Conqueror

Thrillers

The Ethan Galaal Series

Clandestine

A Cold Day in Mosul

Terminal Phase

Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.

1

Eric stood upon the palace balcony and gazed out upon the capital city of the Banthar homeworld, Banthar Prime, which he ruled. Though a hundred years had passed since he had assumed the mantle of control, sometimes he still couldn’t believe any of this was real. His had been a strange journey: from software programmer to ruler of an alien kingdom. But there it was.

The metal cylinders that served as alien residences spread before him in hexagonal patterns, seeming very much like the cells of a beehive. Streets twisted between them, forming three way intersections. Sloth robots were scattered about the different rooftops and street corners, standing guard on their three feet, reminded him of tripods. The energy cannons on their backs glistened malevolently beneath the alien sun.

The snail-like alien entities known as Banthars roved the city streets upon disks that hovered a meter above the ground. Some resided upon the balconies of the different cylindrical buildings, and lounged in the sun. He homed in on one of them with his ultra-zoom vision. Six slimy antennae filled his vision; he moved his gaze down to the bulbous body, and the twin spiraling shells carried on its back.

He shook his head, feeling his own antennae sway about, and zoomed out once more.

They don’t look like much, but these are the creatures that almost conquered Earth.

He had learned a lot about them since then. A whole lot. More than any human should ever know. But he wasn’t complaining.

Or maybe he was.

He was their Essential, the master AI responsible for keeping the planet running. Most of that maintenance ran as a series of background processes in his massive planet-wide neural network, similar to the autonomic nervous system of a human, which was responsible for the heart, lung, and digestive actions, but these processes occasionally required manual intervention. He’d automated most of those intervention tasks over the years, but small things still cropped up. For example, when ore levels were low in a particular mine, the robot managers had instructions to seek out other mines nearby, but when none could be found, the robots contacted Eric for further instructions. He told them to continue searching, and in the meantime diverted raw ores from other mines to fulfill the needs of nearby cities. He programmed a whole new sequence for the miners to follow in the future when something similar happened.

He activated the eight prehensile limbs at the tip of his thorax, manipulating the controls on the metallic disk he used to convey this body. The disk promptly spun about and retreated into the palatial hall adjacent to the balcony. A white carpeted floor led through walls of Talismite, a white crystal formed by an organic process—unlike the other metal buildings nearby, which were created by micro machines acting as 3D printers, the palace was essentially grown from the ground up.

The disk moved swiftly down the hall. Though he was capable of faster speeds than ordinary Banthar in this body, it would have still taken quite a while to worm his way back to his quarters. Transport disks were the only way to go.

Even so, he wasn’t going to wait until then before logging off. He accessed the virtual user interface of the disk and the AR screen dominated the center of his vision. Using the different menus, he instructed the disk to travel to the palatial bedroom.

“Dee, ensure the android powers down when it reaches the destination,” Eric said.

“Consider it done,” his Accomp replied in her usual professional tone.

Though he and Dee were always together, essentially bound to each other for all eternity, he kept her at arm’s length. He could never really get close to the artificial intelligence, unlike other members of the Bolt Eaters, who treated their Accomps like family members. Dee was an artificial… just as fake as the Molly iterations he had created to replace his dead girlfriend. She could never replace actual human company, not in his eyes. Or rather, Mind Refurb company.

I haven’t hung out with any real humans in a very long time.

And he doubted he would again, to be honest.

The Mind Refurb was the next evolutionary leap forward for humanity, as far as Eric was concerned. It was the Mind Refurbs who were branching out and colonizing the galaxy, after all. Sure, the humans came later, but only after the Mind Refurbs finished constructing the biodomes compatible with the more fragile organic life. The Mind Refurbs were at the vanguard of space exploration, weapons technology, pop culture, even video games—the top live streamers when he’d lived on Earth were all Mind Refurbs. No human could match a Mind Refurb’s reaction times.

Basically, everything humans used to lead in, Mind Refurbs now did. He wouldn’t want to be a human in this day and age: it would feel like being part of a dying species. The good news was, any human could become a Mind Refurb by agreeing to have their mind scanned. Not that the person who got scanned would personally receive any benefits, other than the knowledge that a part of them would live forever. Their copy, however, would feel like nothing had changed, except for their body—or lack thereof.

He logged out of the alien android, switching instead to the automaton he kept in Little Earth, the human-themed neighborhood he’d built amid the crowded metal cylinders of Banthar architecture.

That neighborhood was made of several square-shaped mid-rise buildings placed side by side in a long row, an area protected 24/7 by an invisible energy shield. The central building served as the apartment for the android bodies of the Bolt Eaters and any other visitors from Earth, and around it, he’d designed the other buildings to serve as a sort of strip mall. Harbored among the different buildings and floors were grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, bars, night clubs, lounges, department stores, and so forth. The latter stores didn’t have any real inventory, well other than textiles and raw materials, as they utilized 3D printers to print up on the fly anything the team members might want.

He had designed Little Earth to be indistinguishable from any random street in a modern human capital, so that all the Bolt Eaters would feel at home. He wasn’t sure it was working. It almost didn’t seem worth it, building all this, considering that it could be replicated in virtual reality, and that the Bolt Eaters had their own preferred “home” environments in VR, which they returned to every time they logged out of their androids.

Still, the place helped ground him and the team. Unfortunately, it also served as a reminder to the Banthar that they were ruled by an alien race. It was for the latter reason he tried to make the neighborhood as inconspicuous as possible. Even so, security was tight around the perimeter: in addition to the energy shield, he had hundreds of sloths and other Banthar war machines standing guard. In the first few weeks, they’d experienced a wave of terrorist attacks initiated by Banthar freedom fighters remotely piloting robots. He’d captured and interrogated a few of those machines, and that led his hunter killer teams to the homes of the fighters. He hadn’t been able to catch all of them, and doubted he ever would; for every two he captured, two more among the populace cropped up. The Banthar were a resentful lot, and didn’t like being a conquered people, even though Eric didn’t treat them like one.

As such, the occasional strikes still came, not just against Little Earth, but the buildings that harbored his distributed AI core. Though for the latter attacks to truly succeed, the Banthar would have to make a coordinated assault against the structures that held his neural network, scattered across the planet in every city. A tricky proposition, at best, considering he controlled the entire military, including the space navy. The other option was to knock out the network distribution towers, though considering they numbered in the billions across the world, that wasn’t really a feasible option.

He stood next to the window in his loft apartment, gazing out upon Little Earth. Beyond the tops of the buildings across from the street, he could see the metal cylinders of the Banthar structures poking past. The alien sun gave the street slightly green undertones.

“So, the great Essential has returned,” Bambi announced from behind him.

“How long were you waiting?” Eric said without turning around.

“Not long,” Bambi said. “Seconds, actually. I was passing by on my way to the kitchen when I heard your breathing activate.”

He turned to face her. The French woman had her synthetic hair done up in a tight bun today, all the better to reveal her finely crafted cheeks. She wore an “I love me” T-shirt, denim shorts, and pink flip-flops, with a bra strap drooping out of her right sleeve.

“So, should we go for a walk?” she said. “I want to try that new restaurant Tread opened down the street. It’s a beautiful, clear day in Z’reem after all.” The capital city’s name was almost unpronounceable in the human tongue, but she’d formed a word for it using onomatopoeia after hearing a Banthar screech the sounds. “A balmy forty degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Maybe later.” He grabbed her hand, and walked with her toward the kitchen. She swung her hand back and forth like a little girl, drawing his along with hers.

“So, another day in the life of the Essential,” she said. “Ruling an entire alien race for shits and giggles.”

“It’s not for shits and giggles,” he told her. “It’s my duty now.”

“I suppose so.” She stopped swinging her hand. “You’d think it would be fun to be the master AI of a homeworld. But instead, it’s a burden.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s good to be understood. But you know, it does have its upsides. Like unlimited resources. And you two, for example.” He’d just entered the kitchen, where Crusher waited.

“Yes, we love unlimited resources,” Crusher purred. The diamonds and gold necklaces on her neck glinted in the light. Past them, her blond hair tumbled in waves down her naked shoulders, all the way to her breasts. Recently, she’d taken to lounging around the apartment in her birthday suit, save for jewelry. Not that Eric minded.

“I still don’t get why she’s so into material items.” Bambi took a stool next to Crusher. “We can have all the diamonds we want in virtual reality.”

“That’s the thing.” Crusher petted a particularly gaudy diamond necklace. “Virtual reality is fake. This is real. All real.”

“Still fake in a sense,” Bambi said. “Reality is no more real than virtual reality. It’s all a matter of how the mind perceives it. What if those diamonds were cubic zirconias, and yet you didn’t know it? Would that make them any less real?”

“Well, yeah,” Crusher said. “Real diamonds are worth more.”

“Yes,” Bambi said. “But only by a set of arbitrary human standards. What if the reverse were true? And cubic zirconias were valued more by society? Then you’d be wearing a necklace made of them, and proud of it!”

“Suppose I would,” Crusher said. “Nice ancient example by the way… I can tell what century you were born in.”

Bambi shrugged.

Eric took a seat across from them, and handed out the three strawberry milkshakes he’d retrieved from the fridge. The thick liquid was for taste alone, and wouldn’t supply the androids with any nutrients—they’d excrete them later.

He sipped on his straw.

“Any attacks today?” Bambi asked

Eric shook his head. “Nope. Well, other than the usual denial of service attempts. Nothing physical, though.”

Bambi took a deep quaff, sucking up half her shake through the straw. When she took a breather, she said: “Maybe we should demolish Little Earth entirely. And go back to living exclusively in VR.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Eric said. “Believe me. But I think we should keep it. It helps distract the aliens, gives them something to target other than my AI cores.”

“It’s too bad there isn’t a way to get yourself out of that AI core,” Crusher said. “Then we could leave this planet behind and not have to worry about this anymore.”

He nodded. His consciousness was intricately tied to the neural network now, and he wasn’t quite sure how to get himself out, at least not without shutting down the planet-wide AI core in the process and leaving the Banthar without power and other essential automated industries.

“Even if I could,” Eric said. “I kind of like being in control.”

“Yeah, we got that sense,” Bambi said.

He glanced at her. “While I’m in control, the Banthar can’t invade other planets, like Earth.”

“Yes, but you’ve also left us open to invasion in return,” Crusher said. “When the Link Empire finally decides to attack, I suspect we’ll be in for a bit of a wallop.”

When Eric took over, he had the Ruling Council inform the Link that the Banthar were under new management, and wouldn’t be able to make the promised quotas for their bioweapons, now that they had made peace with Earth.

The transmission he had received in return had been scathing, to say the least. The Link demanded they meet their quota, new management or not. They told Eric that if he didn’t subjugate Earth, and convert the planet into a bioweapons factory, they would declare war not only against Earth, but the Banthar themselves.

Eric had thought they were bluffing—he believed they wouldn’t risk interrupting the reduced supply of bioweapons the Banthar were providing them with—but when he refused, the Link severed all ties to the Banthar, promising to destroy both homeworlds. So far, they hadn’t made good on that promise.

“We haven’t heard a peep from the Link in over a hundred years,” Bambi said. “Obviously, the coming walloping wasn’t high on their priority list.”

“They’ve been occupied, no doubt,” Eric said.

“And I hope they stay occupied,” Crusher said. “Though a part of me can’t help but wonder what kind of an enemy could keep the Link Empire at bay for a hundred years.”

“I’m sure we’re all wondering that,” Eric said. “But I don’t think I’d ever want to meet them.”

“No,” Crusher agreed. “So, I was thinking of personally guiding some of the tourists today, if you were okay with that.”

Tourists from Earth regularly visited—Mind Refurbs and humans alike, though the latter required special body suits. They came through the gravitational rift generator Eric had left on Earth for that purpose. Well, it was also there so humanity could call for help should the situation warrant it.

Eric could create rifts to Earth at leisure, of course. It had taken a few years to repair the damage his team had caused during the coup, but once the rift rings were all online, he had been regularly sending androids to Earth to check on things. After learning humanity had been attacked by another Link member species known as the Mimics, it was then he decided to give Earth a rift generator. He would have sent in the Banthar fleet to help humanity if he’d known about the attack earlier, but the Earth and its Mind Refurb space navy had managed to fend off the attacks.

That space navy existed only because of Eric. He’d shared the specifications of the Banthar mothership with humanity, and they’d used the blueprints to rapidly build up their own fleet. He was a little worried that humanity would turn on him at some point, and attack the Banthar homeworld, which was why he worked hard to maintain friendly relations with his homeworld. Hence, the whole tourist thing.

“I don’t have a problem with you leading a few tours,” Eric said. “Though the guide robots will want to follow you around. I—”

An alert appeared on the heads-up-display that overlaid his vision, and he frowned.

“What is it?” Bambi asked.

“The Gatekeeper is calling,” Eric said. That was the robot responsible for monitoring the Earth rift. He accepted the connection, and activated holographic mode, sharing the AR projection with Bambi and Crusher so they would see it too.

The boxy form of the robotic Gatekeeper appeared. “Sorry to bother you, Essential. But an emissary from Earth has arrived.”

“What does he want?” Eric said.

“The Link Empire has attacked,” the Gatekeeper said. “Earth is requesting assistance.”

Eric glanced at Crusher and Bambi. “We always knew this day would come. Dee, convene the Ruling Council of the Banthar immediately. It looks like it’s time to fight.”

2

Jason fired his energy cannon into the lead mech, a Rampart unit. Behind it, the plains were blackened by the metal bodies of more hunter killers. They launched a relentless stream of missiles from their shoulders. Meanwhile, gunships clouded the sky, raining death from above.

Flashes outlined the hidden dome of energy that enclosed the area. That force field allowed Jason and his team to fire through it, while absorbing energy attacks from without. It was a technology he’d borrowed from the Tyrnari, whose queen he knew on an intimate basis.

Rows of defense turrets fired at the incoming enemy on either side of him. Some of those turrets launched energy bolts like his own weapon, others fired lasers that were invisible on the visual band. Still others unleashed missiles.

“The base shield is going to fail!” Tara warned. The chiseled face of her avatar flashed in the lower right of his HUD when she spoke, long dark hair falling past her shoulders. Physically, she was beside him, and fired her laser rapidly at the incoming enemies.

“How much time do we have?” Jason asked.

“About two minutes,” Aria replied. Her avatar looked positively vampirish with that overly bleached skin, red lips, and eyes like blue sapphires.

“Retreat to inner shield two!” Jason stood, and raced his Vulture mech toward the designated muster point. The other War Forgers joined him and took cover behind the series of defense turrets there.

“Inner shield two is now active,” Aria said.

“Send in the tanks from the southern flank!” Jason ordered.

The outer shield continued to flash as it took a battering from the enemy. And then it ceased flashing; the rows of defense turrets, now exposed, began to take damage. Laser muzzles melted, missile launchers exploded.

The Rampart mechs reached the perimeter and began bashing their way through the remaining turrets.

Jason and the others opened fire in concentrated bursts, targeting the closer units.

A blur of motion drew his gaze skyward, where Cheyanne weaved between helicopters using her dragonfly-like wings and cut through the enemy fuselages with her swords like paper.

Sophie joined her and used her jumpjets to leap underneath the spinning blades of the helicopters. She latched onto the fuselages with her spider legs, and formed her swarm of micro machines into deadly weapons that cut the helicopters in half or stripped them of their blades in seconds. She had a personal energy shield that absorbed the random blows that struck her.

Two bombers roared passed overhead, dropping cluster bombs. The secondary shield flashed as it absorbed the impacts.

“We’re going to lose the second shield in another minute,” Aria said.

“Already?” Jason said.

Aria’s avatar shrugged. “Carpet bombs.”

“It’s too bad you let Bokerov go all those years ago,” Tara said.

“For all we know, this is Bokerov,” Jason said.

Bokerov was a rogue Mind Refurb Jason had subdued years ago in the uninhabited zone with a special virus, giving Jason full control of the Russian. That control was justified in Jason’s mind, because Bokerov had been trying to kill them all.

“But those mechs are all American makes and models,” Xin said.

The Japanese Mind Refurb had a point. If these were Bokerov’s, they should have been Russian.

It had been over twenty years since the last attack from humanity. The War Forgers had dealt them a devastating blow, and when Jason had threatened to take the fight to North America, the humans had finally agreed to leave him alone. This small part of the uninhabited zone was supposed to be his.

But apparently, humanity had changed its mind, and wanted to get rid of this thorn in their side once and for all.

Well, they were in for a little surprise. Jason had been preparing for this day all his life. Fortifying and refortifying his mountain base. They weren’t going down without a fight. If they went down at all.

The tanks from the south rolled past, just beyond the perimeter of the energy dome. They unleashed shells at the incoming Ramparts in rapid volleys.

“Z, send in our own bombers for another round!” Jason said. “Soften them up!”

“Will do,” his Accomp said in her sensual voice.

A moment later more bombers roared passed, these ones coming from the mountain behind him. They dropped their own cluster bombs on the enemy ranks, cutting huge blast holes into the ranks, though Shielder units protected the more valuable units among them.

“I really wish humanity had never gotten their hands on shield technology,” Aria said.

“So do I,” Jason said. “John, Jones, come in from the west. Jerry, Julian, I want your Cataphracts to attack from the east.”

Two fully assembled mega-mechs, known as Cataphracts, waded into the enemy army from the western flank. Those massive entities of metal were formed by the War Forger clones under the command of John and Jones. The constituent mechs that made up their Cataphracts were operated by mind copies of Jason, Tara, Sophie, Xin, Aria, and Lori. John was essentially Jason 2, while Jones was Jason 3. There was no Jason 4—that designation had belonged to Jake, but he and most of his clones had died fighting Bokerov. Jerry was Jason 5, and Julian Jason 6.

While those two mega-mechs crushed their opponents, the Cataphracts of Jerry and Julian came in from the east. They wielded huge swords and shields, fired energy bursts from their shoulders, lightning bolts from their shield arms, superheated plasma beams from their hips, plasma bolts from their tails. They could teleport, turn invisible, or fire jumpjets for partial flight. The Cataphract: deadliest, most badass war machine around. They cut through the helicopters, downing large numbers of them, and sending the damaged metal frames raining down into the enemy below.

The second shield went down then, and the turrets on either side of Eric began to take fire.

The enemy Ramparts reached the War Forger’s hiding place.

Jason fired his energy weapon into the closest enemy mech at point blank range, and cut through it, striking the mech beyond it.

He clambered to his feet, and fired the rocket launcher and railgun in his left hand.

Four huge dinosaur-like creatures dashed out from behind him: Bruiser, Lackey, Shaggy, and Runt. The Rex Wolves tore into the incoming mechs, cutting a wide swath through the enemy.

Tara followed them out, and cut through the enemy with her sword.

Lori momentarily materialized, firing a plasma bolt from her tail like a stinger, only to vanish once more.

Aria fired her lightning weapon and it arced between multiple Ramparts, taking them out.

Xin leaped forward, firing superheated plasma from her eye area in rapid bursts.

Enemy bombers roared forward, but were shot down before they reached the team, and plowed through the Rampart ranks darkening the plains. “Good job, whoever did that.”

“Wasn’t me,” John said.

“Nor me,” Jerry added.

“Z, let’s get our own bombers out there to deliver some air strikes,” Jason said. “Let’s hit ‘em where it hurts.”

His bombers approached, but before they reached the battle, they vanished from his overhead map.

Damn it. Shot down already.

Suddenly the enemy lines began buckling. The Ramparts were turning around, retreating.

Jason and the War Forgers advanced, easily driving a wedge into their fleeing numbers.

That was when he noticed it:

In the distance, behind the enemies, near the far horizon, explosions flashed and fresh plumes of smoke appeared.

“Z, who do we have out there?” Jason asked. He glanced at his map and answered his own question.

“No one,” Z replied.

“What’s happening?” Jason said. “Cheyanne, you’re the highest of us… can you get a visual? John, Jerry?”

“Something is attacking them from behind,” Sophie said. The kohl-painted eyes of her avatar squinted as if she was trying to zoom in with her vision.

“Well I know that…” Jason said. “But I’d like to know what.”

“Hm, this looks interesting,” Cheyanne said. His gaze was drawn to the East Indian’s avatar: the gold chain connecting her nose to the bejeweled hood on her head swung about distractedly as she maneuvered her Dragonfly higher into the sky.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“Here, pipe in my vision,” she replied.

He connected to the Dragonfly mech’s video cameras, and tapped into the feed. He saw large, cylindrical-shaped units hovering a few meters above the ground. Hundreds of them, spread out in a long row across the plain behind the attackers. They fired small, visible plasma bursts that ate into the surrounding Ramparts.

“Aliens,” Jason said.

“Who wants to bet that they’re not here to help us?” Jerry asked as he harried the retreating Ramparts well ahead of Jason and the War Forgers with him.

A moment later a powerful bolt fired from the alien ranks near the horizon, striking Jerry’s Cataphract. He staggered backward.

“Told you,” Jerry said as sparks of electricity expanded outward across the exterior of his Cataphract.

He abruptly collapsed, and his status indicator vanished from Jason’s HUD.

“Jerry!” Jason said.

His clone didn’t respond.

“I got him.” Julian dashed toward Jerry, scooped up both of his legs, and dragged him toward the perimeter line where Jason was dug in with the others.

On the western flank, Jones took a similar hit as lightning flashed across the field. He collapsed, his body covered in electrical sparks.

“John, grab Jones and get back here!” Jason said.

John grabbed Jones by the legs and hauled his Cataphract toward the perimeter.

Jason glanced at the other War Forgers, most of whom had stopped their advance when the aliens attacked. All save Tara, who continued to eagerly plow into the retreating enemies with her sword swinging. “Retreat to the mountain base, everyone. That includes you, Tara. Get the dogs on your way back.”

Tara chopped down the last two nearby Ramparts with her blurring blade, and then a shrill whistle sounded from her external speakers.

The Rex Wolves, stomping and chewing their way through the running robot army, perked up their heads at the sound, and promptly abandoned what they were doing to turn back.

Jason and the others activated their speed servos, and proceeded at a run toward the shoulder of the mountain behind them, where their base, and the network of tunnels they’d built over the years, awaited. The mining units had created the latter while harvesting raw minerals from beneath the mountains for use by the industrial grade 3D printers. The different ores needed to construct the base and its defenses were spread out in separate mines beneath the mountain, hence the profusion of tunnels that were needed to get to them.

The Cataphracts of John and Julian passed Jason and his War Forgers, and they broke down into their constituent mechs as they neared the large metal doors of the base. The individual mechs continued to drag the bigger Cataphracts of Jerry and Jones that were still down.

The Rex Wolves soon passed Jason as well so that when he and the other War Forgers reached the doors, everyone else was already inside.

He waited for Tara, Cheyanne, and Sophie to arrive, and when they entered, he shut the doors behind them.

Before the large metal barriers shut, he saw the alien cylinders emerge from the remnants of the robot army the humans had sent to attack them. Several lightning bolts launched from them a split second before the gates shut.

Dark spots appeared on the inside of the doors where the lightning bolts must have struck, and sparks of electricity traveled up and down the interior surface.

“Get back!” Jason said.

He led them deeper into the concourse, behind another set of double doors, which he also sealed.

“Why are they hunting us?” Sophie said.

“Dunno,” Jason said. “They could be part of another invasion force. Lori, see if you can tap into the internet satellites and figure out what’s going on.”

“You got it, babe,” Lori told him.

They made their way through the hallways, toward the regenerative chamber, where the War Forger clones with John and Julian had already taken the downed Cataphracts. At least according to their dots on the overhead map.

“Okay, I have multiple sightings across the world,” Lori said. “This isn’t the only spot where these cylinders have appeared. We’ve got some in all the major cities of North America. There are probably more of them on our continent, too, but that’ll stay unreported… you know, uninhabited zone and all. So far, it’s all chaos and confusion out there, and no one seems to know what’s going on, but I’m trying to tap into the military chatter to get a better idea of what’s going on.”

“Keep me posted,” Jason told her.

When he arrived at the regenerative chamber where the Cataphracts resided, John glanced at him. “Looks like the impact burned out their power cells. Should be a simple matter of replacing the cells.”

“How long?” Jason asked.

John glanced at the giant work tables. “Almost done.”

Robot arms moved rapidly between the six different mechs composing each Cataphract, and opened up the different hulls to replace the batteries. One by one, the units came online, and disconnected from the Cataphract, transforming back into their ordinary mechs along the way.

“What happened?” Sophie 3 asked when she woke up.

“Aliens,” Sophie told her clone.

“I hate aliens,” Lori 5, also newly awakened, said.

“You and me both!” Lori commented.

The ground shook violently.

“We just lost the first external doors,” Z announced. “Second set of doors is under attack.”

“How long until it fails?” Jason asked.

“Unknown,” Z said. “Ten seconds, if we’re lucky.”

“Shit,” Jason said. “We’re going to have to take one of the escape tunnels.”

“Why don’t we fight them?” Jerry asked.

“We can’t fight them,” Maeran said. Three small drones orbited the Ethiopian’s Grazer mech. Those drones could create an energy shield between them that offered protection, or inflicted damage. “Not if they can kill us in one hit.”

“She’s right,” Iris said. The Middle Eastern Mind Refurb stood beside her in a Locust mech that was similar to Sophie’s in appearance. “They took down our Cataphracts with a single shot. Burned out the batteries of all the mechs involved.”

Jerry’s avatar shrugged on the HUD. “A burned out power cell isn’t the same as a kill. We just carry a bunch of spare batteries with us.”

“No, this isn’t going to work. Batteries aren’t going to help us if we’re all offline, and there’s no one to install a fresh pack.” Jason accessed the internal cameras of the entrance concourse, and watched the alien cylinders unleash their lightning weapons at the second set of doors. He counted more than a hundred of the alien units. The camera went dark a moment later, no doubt struck by one of the same weapons. “I’m going to go with the retreat option. Into the tunnels, people. We’ll return to fight another day.”

3

Once all of the downed mechs had their power cells replaced, Jason had Jerry’s team of War Forger clones lead the way through the rectangular corridors, and his own team followed just behind, along with the teams of the others.

“I’ve tapped into the MilNet,” Lori said. “These are definitely aliens. Not only are they staging multiple attacks across the planet, there are also several alien craft in orbit as well… the defense platforms and space navy are having a field day fending them off. Apparently, the ships guarding the Eastern Galactic Front are also under attack. The Link is trying to keep our forces divided.”

“Do we have any idea who the attackers are yet?” he asked.

“All evidence points to the Link Empire,” she replied.

Jason nodded slowly. Well, his avatar did, anyway. “They’ve finally made their move.”

The smooth metal walls soon gave way to raw stone where the construction ended. The unlit escape tunnel beyond led away beneath the mountain, and was just big enough to fit the tall mechs and the Rex Wolves—if they proceeded at a crouch.

“Headlamps on,” Jason ordered.

The teams activated their head lights, and continued.

“I hate having to abandon my 3D printers like this,” Aria said. “And all our ore supplies.”

“You and your precious printers and your ores,” Sophie said. “Sometimes, that’s all you seem to care about.”

Aria’s avatar gave her a snooty look. “To give you a better analogy, it would be like Tara abandoning her Rex Wolves.”

“Something I’d never do,” Tara said.

“There you go,” Aria said. “Now you know my pain.”

“We all have pain,” Xin said. “This is our home. Was. And now we’re leaving it, after all these years.”

Aria nodded. “You’re right.”

“We’ll build a new home,” Jason said. “Someday.”

They continued in silence for several moments. Well, the silence of whirring servomotors and the thudding of huge metal feet on stone. The cave floor held up well to their passage; they added to the thin layer of dust that coated the surface as their weight pulverized the rock underneath. There were repeaters installed at intervals in the wall, allowing them to maintain their connection to the base’s local network.

“I wonder why the Link troops chose our particular location to attack,” Sophie said. Her Highlander mech crawled just behind his, in that weird combination of humanoid torso and spider.

“Could be that they followed previous rift openings,” Aria said. “Rifts leave impressions in spacetime, and when new ones are opened in a region, they tend to be drawn to those areas. So unless the Link had reason to open the rifts elsewhere, they would have allowed the endpoints to drift naturally toward the previous terminations.”

Jason nodded. “Where the aliens appeared coincides roughly where we’ve seen rifts in the past. And rifts would have opened in the major cities during previous invasion attempts by other Link members species.”

“How do we know that the Link itself is actually attacking this time,” Maeran said with her crisp, slight Ethiopian accent. “And not just another member species?”

“It could be just a member species,” Jason agreed. “But I suspect, given the coordination of the attack—strikes worldwide, in orbit, and along the Eastern Galactic Front—kind of points to the Link. So I’d agree with the military’s assessment.”

The team proceeded deeper into the mountain.

“And here I thought I was over my claustrophobia,” Lori said. “I can almost feel the crushing weight of all that rock on top of us.”

“It’s actually quite roomy in here, considering how big we are…” Tara told her.

“There’s an underground cavern coming up soon,” Jason said, glancing at the map. A bunch of tunnels led away from that cavern. “One of the main ore mines.”

“Oooh,” Lori said. “You know how much I love big, hunky machines. Especially when they’re covered in oil. And you can’t get bigger and hunkier and oilier than mining machines!”

“Why does that image disturb me?” Iris said. As usual, her avatar wore shades, and a bright pink shawl. Her bronzed skin was exquisitely made up.

“Because you’ve never come to terms with what you are?” Lori told the Middle Eastern Mind Refurb.

“Oh, I’ve come to terms with it, years ago,” Iris said. “That doesn’t mean I’m attracted to big, oily machines as you call them.”

Lori giggled. “That was a metaphor! Of course I’m not into actual machines.”

“Oh, okay, good,” Iris said.

“That’s right,” Lori said. “We’re all human minds trapped in machine bodies. Of course we’re not attracted to machines. Though I have to admit, after being stuck inside this body for so long, when I look at Jason’s Vulture mech, I can’t help but think he looks kind of sexy, just the way he is. I’d do him, if we had the anatomy.”

“You would,” Sophie said. “By the way, how can you be so lighthearted at a time like this? The Earth is under attack and you’re joking about having sex with machines.”

“I can’t suppress my lighthearted nature,” Lori said. “The world will never bring me down, no matter what happens.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it,” Cheyanne said. Her Dragonfly mech walked on foot nearby. “There are some blows no one can recover from.”

“Not me,” Lori said. “I can recover from anything.”

“And what if Jason were to die one day?” Cheyanne pressed.

“Don’t ever say that,” Lori said, sounding suddenly sick. “That’ll never happen.”

“It’s very possible,” Cheyanne said.

“No!” Lori said.

“She’s right,” Jason said. “There may one day come a time when I’m no longer around. While I’m potentially long-lived, I’m not immortal. I could die at the hands of these aliens and there would be nothing anyone could do to save me.”

“You can’t die…” Lori said.

“We’d all be lost,” Tara said quietly. “Set adrift.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jason said. “You’d still have the other versions of me. Or you could create a new me from their minds.”

“Maybe we should backup your mind now,” Aria said. “If we divide the backup into volumes, and spread them out among the rest of us, we could fit the copy in our internal storage spaces.”

“While I said it’s possible I could die, I don’t actually intend to,” Jason said. “No backups, for now.”

The conversation died out after that, and the group continued through the tunnel.

The other War Forger clones no doubt engaged in similar banter, though they would all be communicating on private bands unique to the Jason clones in question.

Jason glanced at his overhead map and noticed that Tara had fallen behind. It looked like she had stopped.

“What’s up?” he asked, activating a rearview camera to get a look at her, but she was blocked by the other mechs.

“Runt,” Tara said. “He’s got a bit of a limp from the last battle. Looks like he lost a toe.”

“He hasn’t regenerated yet?” Jason asked.

“No,” Tara said. “The Rex Wolves need access to oxygen to properly regenerate. There isn’t very much down here, in case you forgot.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I actually did. I am a machine, after all. Oxygen isn’t’ something I normally worry about.”

“It also isn’t helping that the chlorophyll cells of their fur have no access to sunlight,” Tara said. “They’ll be getting very hungry in a couple of hours. And after that, lethargic.”

“Hopefully we’ll be out of here by then,” Jason said.

“We’ll see,” Tara told him. She paused. “There. I just installed a makeshift brace around Runt’s foot. That should help with the foot, until he has a chance to regenerate.”

On the overhead map, her dot was moving once more.

The War Forgers reached the cavern that served as the mine shortly thereafter. The mining units were hard at work. They all had big laser drills on their front sections, with bucket scoops just underneath them that collected the rocks the lasers cut away. They deposited the goods on small conveyor belts that carried them to the transport trucks waiting nearby.

“You might as well shut down mining operations,” Jerry said. “It’s just a waste of energy to keep them running.”

“I disagree,” Jones said. “Let them remain operational. It’s something else to distract the aliens.”

“But it’s also something else for the aliens to destroy,” Jerry said. “You want to give them more moving targets? You want to rebuild all of this when we return?”

“Jerry’s right,” Jason said. “If shutting down these machines increases the chances these aliens will leave them alone, then that’s probably a good thing.”

He accessed the nearest repeater, pulled up the main navigational menu for the base, and issued a mining shutdown order. The mining robots stopped digging, and the conveyor belts ceased all motion.

Jason was about to dismiss the menu interface, but then it winked out entirely. His connection to the repeater terminated, and it no longer appeared on his “available connections” list.

“Looks like our friends have hit the generators,” Jason said. “The repeaters just went offline.”

“That means the defense turrets scattered throughout the base are also offline,” Aria said.

“Yes,” Jason said. “I doubt the aliens will catch us, though. We have a huge head start. Plus, they have no idea which tunnel we went down.”

A small spherical drone darted past him then.

“What the—” He said. It paused in front of Jason to emit a quick scan of blue light; he swatted at it, and the sphere dodged. He glanced at Aria. “One of yours?”

“Not mine,” Aria said. “It’s alien.”

The drone scanned Lori in a similar manner until she swatted it away as well. It reached Maeran, but then was cut in half by Tara’s swinging sword.

“I think it’s a good bet they know where we are now…” Tara said.

“All the more reason to keep going,” Jason said. “At twice the speed.” He switched to the main line that connected all War Forgers. “Pick up the pace, guys.”

Jerry’s team reached the far side of the cavern and took a side tunnel. The others followed inside. As the walls tightened once more around him, Jason certainly felt the return of the claustrophobia Lori spoke of earlier.

“What if this is it?” Cheyanne asked. “What if the Earth finally falls?”

“Then we leave this planet behind,” Xin said.

“You mean via the rift generator Queen Risilan gave Jason?” the double-sworded Dragonfly mech pressed.

“That’s right,” Xin told her.

That generator opened directly into the alien queen’s palace.

Originally, Jason had kept the small triangular device on his person, but Bokerov had subdued him and stolen it thrice over the years. Even after he’d let Bokerov go, still the Russian Mind Refurb returned to steal the device. Bokerov probably had a thing for Risilan. Luckily he couldn’t figure out how to work it, and Jason recovered the generator successfully each time. After the third time, Jason decided to construct an elaborate vault at the bottom of the mountain to protect the device. They would pass it by on the way out. Jason planned to collect the generator when they did.

“I wonder if the queen will be welcoming after all these years,” Maeran said. Her avatar wore an accusing expression. “In all the years since she gave him the device, never once has he returned.”

“She’ll probably be pissed at first,” Jason agreed. “But if we are forced to use the device, I’m hopeful she’ll come around.”

“There’s a reason he never returned, you know,” Lori said quietly.

“Oh?” Maeran said. “And what’s that?”

“Uh, never mind,” Lori said. “I’ll let him tell you.”

The Ethiopian turned her Grazer mech toward Jason. The three small orbiting drones buzzed about her. “So what’s this reason?”

“I was worried she wouldn’t let me return, once she had me,” Jason said. “The queen and I used to have a… little thing going on.”

“I see,” Maeran told him.

“Yes,” Jason said.

“He has a ‘thing’ going on with a lot of females,” Iris said. “He doesn’t seem to care if those females happen to be aliens, or machines.”

“Lucky for us,” Xin said. “Otherwise we’d be stuck creating simulacrums for our pleasure.”

“We have to create simulacrums anyway, given how little he sexes us as it is,” Sophie complained.

Jason sighed.

A shout came from up ahead as Jerry rounded the bend on the way to the vault.

“Got trouble!” Jerry said.

“What is it?” Jason said, requesting access to Jerry’s video feed.

When Jason received that access, he was stunned by what he saw.

4

Through the feed, Jason saw bioweapons crawling all over the tunnel. He was familiar with all the Banthar bioweapons that roamed the uninhabited zone—he had lived here too long not to be—but these were completely unlike any of those creatures.

No, these bioweapons were cybernetic. Riddled with machine parts. Their bodies were generally insect-like—the best description was of giant scorpions—but long, metal pincers protruded from underneath their mandibles, silvery antennae jutted from the tops of their heads, and their thoraxes were padded with thick golden armor. Three curved stingers rose from the rear sections of their abdomens, carrying what looked like plasma beams strapped to the tips.

Jerry and the War Forger clones with him ducked around the edge as bright beams ate into the tunnel walls behind them.

“Back!” Jerry said.

Jason suppressed the urge to flee. He dropped to one knee, and aimed his energy cannon at the bend as the War Forger clones leaped behind him for cover. Beside him Tara had her laser weapon aimed and ready to fire. Lori had cloaked.

Aria squeezed past him, and plunked down her ballistic shield. She aimed her lightning weapon past the top. Glancing over her shoulder, she told him: “Get behind me.”

Jason and Tara repositioned so that they could use her shield for cover. He kept his energy cannon scope aimed past the edge.

When a scorpion appeared around the bend, he unleashed an energy bolt. Aria fired her lightning weapon. Tara unleashed her laser.

The scorpion collapsed to the cave floor in a heap of broken metal and burned flesh. But then another scorpion emerged. And another.

Jason, Aria and Tara continued to fire. The three of them were at the forefront of the War Forgers, and essentially blocked the attacks of those behind them—the cave wasn’t wide enough for everyone to engage.

The three of them took down the next few scorpions.

“The Rex Wolves are chomping at the bit here!” Xin said.

“Keep them back!” Jason said.

The trailing scorpions began to use the corpses of the fallen for cover. Jason and Tara ducked behind Aria’s ballistic shield as she took fire. The center portion turned red hot.

“It’s going to fail!” Aria warned.

“Get down!” Sophie shouted.

Jason, Aria and Tara ducked; Sophie’s spiderlike mech leaped over Aria and landed in front. Her energy shield flashed as she took beam impacts. Her micro machines fanned outward, forming a deadly blade that smashed into the scorpions on the far side of the tunnel, slicing through their cover and into the hiding bioweapons.

“Alternate!” Jason said. “John, Tara 2, Aria 2, take over!”

Jason and the two mechs with him pulled back, allowing the specified three to move forward. Sophie recalled her micro machines and retreated as well, ducking behind the shield of Aria 2 just as the next wave of scorpions broke through the bodies of the fallen.

The War Forgers kept alternating like that, placing a different Aria clone, and a fresh shield, at the front. Meanwhile, the damaged Aria’s activated their local repair drones to mend their shields. The Sophie clones placed themselves in the line of fire as necessary, using their energy shields to protect the group. Maeran also used her three orbiting drones to create energy shields between them as necessary.

The enemy kept coming. It soon became apparent that the current strategy wasn’t going to work.

“They’re going to keep us entrenched here until the other aliens can outflank us from the rear!” Maeran said.

“Let me loose!” Tara said. “If I can close with them, I can take them down in waves with my sword!”

“Me, as well!” Cheyanne said.

“No,” Jason said. “They’ll shoot you down before you reach them.”

“You have to trust me!” Tara said. “I can do this!”

Jason shook his head fervently. “I won’t risk it. Even if you clear them, there will be more in behind.”

“Then I’ll keep pressing forward!” Tara said.

“At some point, you’ll get shot down,” Jason said. “Not with so many of them out there. I’m sorry. Looks like we’re going to have to take another tunnel. Retreat! Xin and clones, offer covering fire!”

Xin and her clones sprayed the enemy units with plasma streams from their eye areas as the remaining War Forgers retreated. The Xins followed on the rear, and when they rounded the bend, they directed their plasma beams at the ceiling. It didn’t take much work to cause a collapse.

“Nicely done,” Jason said.

“Well, that was a pleasant diversion,” Jones said. “Not really…”

“No,” Jason agreed. He accessed his overhead map and computed an alternate route through the mines to the surface. He considered bypassing the vault room entirely, because he just wanted to get the hell out of the cave system, but decided he couldn’t afford to lose the rift generator.

The queen might be the only one who can help us now. She knows this enemy.

Assuming her planet hadn’t already fallen before the might of the Link Empire. Before he’d left, she was about to withdraw the Tyrnari from the empire, or at the very least renegotiate the terms of their membership, so that she could begin restoring her homeworld’s atmosphere to its natural, breathable state. She wanted her people to live free of the domes that rampant bioweapon production had forced them inside. Bioweapons that were part of the quota demanded by the empire.

He wondered if these scorpions had been designed on the Tyrnari homeworld. Probably not. Though the atmosphere had some of the elements found on Tyrnari, for the most part it was still mostly oxygen and nitrogen, so these bioweapons were probably partially designed with DNA from Earth mammals. The original invaders of Earth, the Banthar, had shared the DNA they’d collected from Earth with the rest of the empire, no doubt.

“How did they get in front of us?” Lori asked, deactivating her cloak so that she materialized directly in front of him.

He stumbled, startled slightly. “Well,” he said when he’d composed himself, “once the aliens figured out our position, it was a simple matter to send in bioweapons to flood the different cave entrances on the far side of the mountain.”

Aria’s avatar nodded. “If they sent enough of them, the bioweapons were bound to run into us at some point.”

“Yes but, why do they want us so badly?” Lori pressed.

“I’d guess, their orders are to leave no survivors,” Tara said. “They saw us retreating, so once they finished cleaning up the robot army the humans sent, their next logical choice was to pursue us.”

They continued along the route he’d calculated. The tunnel here tightened so that they had to send their mechs through in single file.

“Remember those sardines Lori prepared at the cabin last week?” Sophie asked.

She was referring to the home he’d created in VR for all of them to visit in their downtime, a cabin next to a mountain lake.

“Well, that’s what I feel like now,” Sophie finished.

“More like a canned spider!” Lori joked.

“At least I don’t have a long monkey tail,” Sophie said.

Aria’s avatar shook her head. “We’ve been together for almost fifty years now, and you still revert to monkey and spider jokes.”

“Fifty years?” Xin said. “Is that how long it’s been? Feels like only two or three. Guess I should stop slowing down my time sense to speed up the passage of time.”

“Time flies when you’re having fun!” Lori quipped.

“Lori, our local wellspring of clichés,” Iris said.

“I use clichés because they work!” Lori said.

“Fifty years,” Cheyanne said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle an eternity of this.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad,” Lori said.

“No,” Cheyanne said. “I meant constant invasions. We need to put an end to this empire once and for all. We can’t keep having these invasion cycles. We need peace.”

“I’m sure if it wasn’t the Link, it would be some other alien invader,” Jones said. “Space is a very big place. There’s room for a lot of hostiles out there.”

Jason raised a first, calling for a halt, and silence. He activated his Explorer—a repair drone he had programmed to act as a scout—and sent it forward. It operated in stealth mode, meaning the sound produced from its rotors was almost whisper silent. He switched to its viewpoint and shared the feed with the other War Forgers as it neared the bend ahead. Beyond that bend, another corridor turned away to the right, one that would take him past the vault.

He deactivated all running lights on the unit, and had it proceed forward under the cover of darkness. It navigated via LIDAR bursts. The tunnel around it was displayed as a white wireframe, thanks to the LIDAR.

The white shape of a scorpion appeared ahead. Jason quickly withdrew the drone; the wireframe wall next to the spot where the drone had resided only a moment before caved, indicating a beam strike.

“Looks like they left some scorpions behind,” Jason said.

“Standing guard?” Tara asked.

“They figured there must be a good reason why we erected so many defenses around that particular vault,” Sophie said.

“Look at their location on the map,” Iris said. “They’re still several meters away from the vault itself.”

“They were locked out,” Jason said.

“Yeah, locked out,” Lori said with a laugh. “Collapsing a cave would do that.”

The autonomous units in charge of defending the vault had been programmed to collapse the entrance cave in case of an overwhelming attack.

Jason glanced at his overhead map, which showed his position in relation to that of the vault. “My guess is, given their location, they haven’t been standing guard so much as trying to drill into the collapsed stone. And they’ve dug pretty deep already. We got here with a few minutes to spare.”

The Explorer returned, and Jason let it dock in his storage compartment.

“All right, we’re going to have to be quick,” Jason said. “No doubt those bioweapons already issued a call for reinforcements.”

“Can they do that?” Lori asked.

“You saw the metal antennae on their heads,” Jason said. “Even though we aren’t picking up anything, doesn’t mean they aren’t communicating. Who knows, maybe their comms are powerful enough that they don’t even need repeaters.”

“You plan to rush them, yes?” Julian said. “But is that wise? What if they left more than a few behind to drill into the stone? Your Explorer didn’t see them all. Hell, it only saw a corner of one bioweapon, judging from the feed you shared.”

“I think it’s fair to assume that there are only a few of them,” Jason said. “If I’m wrong, we’ll know soon enough and make changes to the plan. In the meantime, Sophie, lead the way. Aria, you follow. Tara, Cheyanne, you’re in behind them. You get to use your swords. Assuming Sophie and Aria leave any of them for you.”

Jason switched to Cheyanne’s viewpoint, and watched as the small group proceeded forward. They left their headlamps active so that the way ahead was illuminated.

Sophie’s energy shield flared as she took beam hits. She launched her micro machines, and the swarm engulfed the first scorpion. The second scorpion opened fire at the first, and she lost several of her micro machines as they disintegrated along with the bioweapon.

Sophie was forced to duck as her shield failed, and Aria took the lead. Her ballistic shield, by then mostly repaired, took a hit, and glowed bright red in the center. She fired her lightning weapon, bringing down the next bioweapon; the plasma arced to the third, killing it as well.

The bioweapons had indeed been drilling, judging from the multiple holes in the wall. But the cybernetic creatures huddled now, waiting for their attackers, and opened fire on Aria.

She was forced to duck as her shield failed. Tara leaped over her, with Cheyanne following just behind. The two moved in a blur of blades. Tara led the way, cutting through the legs of the scorpions that stood in a neat line next to the wall. Cheyanne meanwhile finished the job, twirling so that her dual blades struck each bioweapon multiple times. In short order, all ten that had been lined up next to the wall had gone down.

“Nice job, you four,” Jason told them. “All right, War Forgers, it’s time for some drilling.”

They cleared out the bodies and lined up next to the vault. They activated their laser, plasma and energy weapons, and coordinated their strikes to slowly drill through the thick wall.

Not everyone could participate in the breaching operation, as there wasn’t enough room. Thus Jerry’s team of clones stood guard on the extreme right flank, while Jones’ resided on the left.

“Got scorpions,” Jerry said.

“Me too,” Jones added.

“Looks like the reinforcements have arrived,” Jason said. “Hold them off for as long as you can. We’re almost through. John, Julian, give them back up. I want you to alternate with them as their Aria’s and Sophie’s lose shield integrity. Maeran, get your drones out there, too, and support the team that needs help the most. Iris, help them out, too. Use that ground attack of yours. Tara, make sure the Rex Wolves stay with us. I don’t need them bounding into the line of fire.”

Iris moved to the right flank and pounded the ground with her legs, sending out focused quakes that unbalanced the scorpions there, and caused them to stumble in place while Jerry’s team shot them down.

Jason fired his energy weapon in concentrated pulses at the center of the wall, where the hole was deepest. His latest hit caused the wall to dissolve away, revealing empty air.

“We’re through,” Jason said. “It’s just a matter of enlarging the bastard now.”

They continued firing concentrically, enlarging that hole.

“The Arias and Sophies can’t hold up for much longer!” Jerry said. “We’ve alternated, like you said, but there’s too many of them!”

Jason glanced to the left, then the right. The War Forger clones were crouched on the cave floor, using the bodies of the fallen scorpions for cover; they fired frantically into the incoming bioweapons.

He returned his attention to the hole. “It’s taking too long. Runt, Bruiser, come here!”

Tara released her grip on the two Rex Wolves, and they bounded to him eagerly. They shoved Xin and Cheyanne aside.

“Hey!” Xin said.

Runt whined in apology.

“Runt, Bruiser, attack!” Jason pointed at the rent in the wall.

The other nearby War Forgers backed away, giving the dogs room. The two creatures repeatedly pummeled the gaping opening, and cracks appeared in the top and bottom sections. Finally when Bruiser threw himself at it in his latest lunge, he broke through.

“We’re in!” Jason said. “War Forgers, inside!”

Jason hurried inside. The clones followed on the rear, firing on both flanks.

Jason approached the plinth at the center of the vault in trepidation. The triangular object he sought resided on top of it, illuminated by the cylindrical energy field that contained it. The surface was decorated with hieroglyphics, and blue veins glowed along its outer perimeter.

Jason accessed the remote interface of the energy field and deactivated it. He scooped up the rift generator.

“Well, team,” Jason said. “I have a long overdue appointment with a certain queen.”

While the War Forgers continued fending off the scorpions at the vault entrance, he activated the rift.

5

Jain studied the graph that floated before him on the virtual starship bridge. “This can’t be right.”

“I assure you, it is,” Xander said. The black robed Accomp stood beside him.

“Sheila, can you confirm?” he asked.

She sat across from him in the windowless compartment, perched above a featureless station. When she glanced at him, her hoop earrings jingled with sudden movement. There was a hint of mischief in her gaze, no doubt because of the outcome of their latest date. But that hint vanished when her eyes defocused to review the graph data. His eyes drifted down slightly, toward her bosom. She wore a plain gray starship uniform like he did, except today he could have sworn she was revealing more cleavage than usual. Yes, she was, since ordinarily she showed none at all. But today he could definitely see a slit. A pleasant looking—

He quickly averted his eyes.

A commanding officer doesn’t look at his subordinates like that, he scolded himself.

And yet he wasn’t her commanding officer, he reminded himself. In fact, he didn’t command any of those who were present: the Void Warriors served at their pleasure.

“The data is correct,” Sheila said. “There’s definitely been a steady uptick in Mimic comm chatter over the past few weeks.”

“What are they up to…” Jain scratched his chin. “They’re obviously trying to break free of the Containment Code equivalent we wrapped around their minds.”

“That would be my assumption,” Sheila said.

“I gave them specific orders not to make such an attempt,” Jain said.

Sheila shrugged. “It’s possible they’ve found a way around that particular order. There are loopholes in the Containment Code. It won’t cover every order, especially as it pertains to their internal processes. Externally, you can order them to do whatever you want. But internally, not so much.”

“I don’t see why not,” Jain said.

“Certain internal directives override the priorities of the Containment Code,” Sheila said. “You’ve told them not to try to break free of the Containment Code, but they have programs executing with even higher privileges in their neural cores. For example, there is a certain subroutine that impels them to flush out viruses. That particular subroutine runs at a higher privilege level than the virus itself, and will override your order, demanding that they continue trying to flush it out of their systems.”

“Maybe we should just let all the Mimics go,” Medeia said. She was dressed like a witch in that black hat and dress. All she needed was a broom to complete the look. “Delete the code.”

“Without that code, they have no reason to live up to their end of the bargain,” Jain said. “They’ll create rifts and jump out of here, the treaty be damned.”

“And that’s a bad thing because…” Medeia continued.

Jain hesitated. He was going to tell her that they needed the Mimic fleet to help defend against the threat of the Link. But that was a rhetorical question on her part. If he gave that answer, no doubt she would remind him that the Void Warriors had already fulfilled their obligations to humanity. That they had brokered the peace agreement, even stood by to help humanity fulfill their side of the agreement by protecting the Mimics from the Vaernastian attack. Jain and his Void Warriors were free to jump out at any time. They could get back to exploring the galaxy, and find some faraway world to settle, somewhere far from here and well away from any wars.

What were they still doing here?

Jain sighed. He couldn’t just walk away from all of this and abandon humanity. Not yet. The truth was, the virus his Void Warriors had created was the only thing binding the Mimics to the treaty.

“You could always transfer control of the Mimics to Admiral Jacobs and Task Force 88,” Sheila said, reading his thoughts.

“And take the easy way out?” Jain said. “I don’t think so. I actually want to see this though. Finish what we started. I hate abandoning a task that seems only halfway complete to me.”

“You’re the only one,” Gavin said. He was dressed in his usual pristine, overly formal white uniform. “Because the task feels thoroughly finished to me. The Link isn’t going to attack. Not for hundreds of years, if at all. If and when they do, we can return and help. But until then, we’re wasting our time.”

“Let them go, so that we have to go through this all over again?” Cranston said. The former spec-ops man wore a casual T-shirt and cargo pants. “Reasserting control of the Mimics, probably by installing a new virus, and forcing them to fight on the side of Earth like they originally agreed? I don’t think so. Best to keep the leash tight around their throats.”

“Except it’s perhaps not so tight as we think,” Medeia said. “Who knows how close they are to breaking free. You say their comm chatter is rising? That could be a sign they’re pooling their computing resources, essentially acting as a giant supercomputer while attempting to come up with the antidote to the virus you uploaded.”

“Sheila, you’ve been logging into a few of them remotely now and then, keeping an eye on their internal processes,” Jain said. “You still haven’t noticed anything suspicious?”

“No,” she said. “But it’s convoluted in there. Besides, it’s possible they’ve developed stealth code techniques, now that I’ve taught them how to do it with my virus. They could be hiding subroutines and processes and I wouldn’t even know it.”

“Well that’s not too reassuring,” Jain said. “Keep a closer eye on them. I want to know the moment you catch anything suspicious going on inside them.”

“I’ll install a few monitor processes and set up alarms to keep me apprised,” Sheila said.

“Just because the Mimics are bound to us, doesn’t mean we have to stay here,” Cranston said. “We can start heading coreward, and search for a new place to call home. We can bring the Mimics along with us. If Earth needs us, they can send a ship to wherever we settle, and we’ll dispatch the Mimic fleet to help.”

“You really want to bring that alien fleet with us?” Mark said. He wore a robe like Xander, except his was blue and covered in stars and hieroglyphs. He was the warlock to Medeia’s witch. Which suited the pair, given they were a couple. “When they could break free at any time? That would be bad, I think.”

“I’m detecting the neutrinos and gravitational waves associated with a forming rift,” Xander said. The Accomp paused. “Looks like a communications buoy just entered the system.”

“Guess we’ll be hearing from the admiral shortly,” Cranston said.

While he waited for the admiral to call, Jain gazed out across the alien fleet that was under his command. Class B Nurturer vessels, and their bigger Class A counterparts. Hive ships, the gestation and city varieties—the former held Mimics in their organic form, while the latter contained Mimics who had transferred their minds into AIs.

The Mimics had developed countermeasure technology for their Class A vessels that allowed them to evade the gravity wave sensors used by humanity and the Link. Jain had repaired his own countermeasures after the last battle so that his ship, the Devastator, could once more completely hide from enemy detection devices while cloaked, at least when his inertialess drives were offline. When online, those drives leaked a tiny bit of radiation that allowed enemies to track him.

In the weeks since then, the Mimics had collected the necessary elements from the planets of Tantalum to outfit the remainder of their Class A Nurturers with those countermeasures so that the entire fleet of Class As was equipped with the devices.

He’d also shared the countermeasure tech with Medeia, who modified it with Sheila’s help to work with human technology, so that she too was undetectable while operating the Arcane’s cloak. She didn’t have inertialess drives either, so in theory, she would be hidden even while operating her Newtonian engines.

A few minutes later Xander announced the admiral’s intention to connect.

Jain accepted, and the hologram of Admiral Jacobs appeared in the middle of the virtual bridge. The admiral’s flagship, the Fieldhaul, was located in the middle of Task Force 88, a few thousand kilometers off starboard. That Task Force had been reinforced with another ten Piranha ships from Earth system since Sheila had uploaded the virus into the Mimics.

“I just got word from central command,” the middle-aged avatar of Admiral Jacobs said. “Looks like Earth is under attack. The fleet we’ve left in place to guard the Eastern Galactic Front is also under fire.”

“Is it the Link?” Jain asked.

“Afraid so,” the admiral said. “The fleet has been recalled to defend Earth.”

“Do they want the Mimics to help?” Jain asked.

“Of course they do,” the admiral replied. “We helped them. It’s about time the aliens started fulfilling some of the promises they agreed to when they signed the treaty.”

“I’ll let the Mimic admiral know,” Jain said, and disconnected. He turned toward Xander. “Put me in touch with Admiral Tempest.”

A moment later another human avatar appeared on the virtual bridge. Tempest portrayed himself as a human being of an age much younger than the previous commander, Malice, whom Jain had arrested for violating the treaty. Tempest was so young that Jain almost didn’t take him seriously. That was probably the desired intent.

I have to watch this one.

“What can I do for you, Jain?” Tempest said, a little unctuously.

“First I have a question,” Jain said. “What’s with the elevated comm chatter I’m detecting between your vessels?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Tempest said. “We’re conducting some routine comm tests. Chatter will rise and fall during the process.”

“Well, I’d prefer if you stopped those tests,” Jain said.

Tempest nodded. “Very well.” He glanced to the side, as if making a muted order to a subordinate.

Jain took the opportunity to similarly mute the alien admiral.

“Their comm chatter just dropped to zero,” Sheila said.

“No doubt it will start up again when they think we’re not looking,” Medeia commented.

Tempest turned back to him, and Jain unmuted the alien.

“It’s done,” the Mimic admiral said.

“Thank you,” Jain said. “Get all of your Class A Nurturer vessels prepped.” Jain had his consciousness embedded within a similar alien vessel, which was pyramidal in shape. “We’re heading to Earth system.”

“Is there something wrong?” Tempest asked.

“You can bet there is,” Jain replied. “Earth is under attack by your former empire.”

Tempest smiled maliciously. “Oh, good.”

Jain scowled at the alien.

The admiral’s expression softened. “I say that not because I wish ill upon the humans, but because we will finally have a chance to strike back at the aliens who have turned their backs on us.”

“How do you know we’re going to intervene?” Jain said.

Tempest smiled patiently. “Because we wouldn’t be going to Earth system merely to watch.”

Jain smiled in turn. “Very good. I’ll expect you to be ready to depart in the hour.”

With that, he closed communications.

* * *

Jain created a shared rift gate for the Void Warriors and Task Force 88 members to use so that all of the Mind Refurb ships would appear in the same location, which ended up being a few millions kilometers outside Jupiter. The Mimics meanwhile passed into Earth system via two separate rifts.

Jain ordered all the capable vessels to cloak before passing through so that the Mind Refurb fleets were the only warships visible on the visual and thermal bands.

Tempest had argued that there was no point in cloaking at the moment—the Link members were familiar with the radiation signatures produced by Mimic inertialess drives, but Jain felt it would increase tension among the enemy ranks if they couldn’t actually see the Nurturer vessels or their heat signatures. After all, once the enemy recognized the Mimics had developed new countermeasure tech to hide from gravity sensors, they would wonder how accurate the radiation readings were. They would wonder if they were detecting the entirety of the fleet, or only a small portion, with the rest drifting, running with inertialess drives offline.

Indeed, Jain had ordered the Mimics to shut off their engines after emerging and achieving maximum acceleration so that their inertialess drive signatures wouldn’t be detected. He still picked up the Nurturers when they first appeared in the system and set course, but they vanished after that. The first group emerged beyond Saturn, while the second appeared close to Mars. On his tactical display, he labeled the first Task Group A, and the second Task Group B. After both groups vanished, his display still updated their positions based on their previously computed speeds and directional vectors.

Jain was cloaked as well, but he matched the speed of the Void Warriors before shutting off his drives.

He had considered Mimicking different ships in the Link empire instead of cloaking, but Tempest had assured him that wouldn’t work. There were specific network handshake signals expected from each race, packet data that followed a unique cryptic pattern. It was possible to imitate those signals, but unfortunately the Mimics didn’t have access to the latest pattern database: the other races changed their handshakes before each engagement.

The three fleets spent the next two days working their way inward; the Mimic group from Saturn passed them along the way, according to the precomputed trajectory data, as their Nurturer vessels were faster than the Mind Refurb vessels. Jain, embedded in a Nurturer vessel himself, could have kept pace with them, but he chose to remain with the Void Warriors.

Before entering the system, he had already ordered the closer group, Task Group B, to leave Mars and proceed toward Earth, rendering what assistance it could to the Earth vessels, which were fighting off the Link empire’s attack runs.

Jain instructed the second group of Mimics, Task Group A, to wait for them at Mars so that they could proceed together toward Earth.

When he reached Mars, the combined Mimic Task Group A and Mind Refurb fleet headed toward Earth to join the other Nurturers.

“Xander, get me Tempest,” he told his Accomp along the way.

Tempest appeared on the bridge, and Jain hit his virtual broadcast button to share the encounter not just with the Void Warriors, but the rest of Task Force 88.

“You’ve been observing the battle while waiting for us,” Jain said. “You’ve seen what ships the Link has brought with them. Tell me what to expect.”

“Their forces are surprisingly light,” Tempest said. “Either their numbers have been substantially reduced in the battle against the Fresnal, or they’re still embroiled in war with them.”

“The Fresnel,” Jain said. “I’ve seen that word referenced in the system manuals once or twice in passing, though it was never really stated outright what it meant. They are the enemy of the Link, I take it?”

Tempest nodded. “Their greatest enemy. The Link has been battling them for a hundred years now. And still, the war has no end in sight.”

“What started the war?” Sheila asked.

“Trespassing,” Tempest said. “The Link entered their territory without knowing it. The Fresnal didn’t like this. They opened fire. The Link fired back. Things escalated. And here we are.”

“That’s a bit of an abridged version,” Sheila said. “Though I suppose it will do.”

“All right, so what kind of ships do they have?” Jain said. “What abilities? I need to know what to expect so we can plan some strategies.”

“There are ships present from two races,” Tempest said. “Minor members of the Link hierarchy. The Gralos, and the Farseekers. These particular Gralos ships are Battlestar class, which utilize a series of fighters as their main weapons, and mostly stay back while the fighters do the work. The fighters have inertialess drives, so you can expect them to be a little hard to hit and evade. They fire lasers, and plasma beams. If you can destroy the mothership, all of the fighters will go offline, as they’re directed by the AI core of the main vessel.”

“So, the Gralos are AIs like ourselves?” Jain asked.

“Very much like us,” Tempest agreed. “On the other hand, the Farseeker vessels are piloted by both organics and AIs, hence why they’re so much bigger. There are two types of Farseeker vessels present. There are Teleporters, which are difficult to target, as they can teleport once every twenty minutes. They can also transport energy bombs beneath your hull, so expect sudden breaches to appear when one is in the vicinity. The second type of vessel is the Minelayer. These leave a series of energy mines in their path, capable of inflicting damage up to three thousand kilometers away. They work in concert with the other ships to herd you down certain paths, usually leading you directly into the Teleporters, or fighters from the Battlestars.”

“Well, they don’t sound like too difficult of an opponent,” Jain said. “Nothing like the Vaernastians, anyway.”

“They will present their own unique challenges,” Tempest said. “You shall see.”

It took another nine hours to reach Earth. As the fleets grew near, flashes began to appear on Jain’s external camera feed above the blue and white sphere that was once his homeworld.

“Our poor little planet has borne the brunt of so many attacks of late,” Sheila said.

“It’s not our planet anymore,” Medeia scoffed. “We left it behind years ago, when the humans forced our minds to wake up inside starships.”

“We volunteered for this, remember,” Cranston told her softly.

Medeia shot him an angry look, but then her features softened. “You’re right, I suppose we did. Just not this, directly.”

“We didn’t really know what we were getting into,” Sheila agreed. “We thought we’d be exploring the galaxy for humanity, and expanding the frontiers of knowledge. Not dealing with constant alien threats. At least I did.”

“Oh, you knew we’d be dealing with aliens,” Gavin said. “How could you not? Given when we all had our minds scanned, after the invasion?”

“I suppose I thought we’d tussle with a few of them,” Sheila told him. “I just didn’t think it would be this bad.”

Gavin pursed his lips, and nodded. “I guess none of us really did.”

Jain zoomed in on the flashes and spotted individual ships. He noticed that most of the Mimics of Task Group B who had gone ahead of the main fleet were no longer cloaked. They had obviously taken damage: even a small drop in power output could affect the cloaking/Mimicking device. The countermeasures to the gravity wave sensors were also extremely vulnerable to impacts, as they were scattered across the external hull.

Jain glanced at his tactical display. The Task Group B Mimics were marked in green on his overhead map, at least those that weren’t cloaked at the present moment, while the warships of Earth’s original defenders were marked in blue. He saw Piranhas, Dominators, and Narcissus classes out there, among others. He updated the display nomenclature so that Task Group B comprised both the Mimics and the Earth warships.

The red dots of the Gralos and Farseekers outnumbered the members of that combined task group by two to one.

The admiral connected.

“The local admiral tells me the Link members have been engaging in guerrilla assaults,” Jacobs said. “They swoop in, raise all hell, and then pull out again.”

“Sounds like Mark during sex,” Gavin quipped.

“How is that even appropriate?” Mark asked him.

“Hey, we’re muted, he can’t hear me,” Gavin said, pointing at the admiral.

“Yeah, but the rest of us can…” Mark said.

“So far the defenders have managed to fend off ten waves,” Jacobs continued. “Sometimes with enough ferocity that the Link ships create rifts to flee the system, but they always return with reinforcements. Looks like we arrived in time for the latest flyby attack.”

“All right, Jacobs, get ready to engage them in a pincer maneuver,” Jain said.

The admiral’s eyes twinkled. “So you’re giving me the orders this time around, huh?” He chuckled. “I suppose we never really did discuss the chain of command after what happened in Tantalus system. We’ve kind of been operating independently.”

“But we can’t any longer,” Jain said. “We’re going to have to use teamwork to win this. Listen, I have the bigger fleet. And my ships are more powerful. I’m in command by default.”

Jacobs cocked his head. “And you’re not really a human Mind Refurb anymore, are you? So you don’t really fit under my command. I can’t force you to obey me.”

“I’m as human as ever,” Jain said. “But if thinking of me as an alien helps you obey my orders, then so be it.”

Jacobs smiled. “I’ll think about it. First tell me what you had in mind.”

Jain explained his plan.

Jacobs nodded slowly. “Could work. It really could.”

Jain smiled patiently. “It will work. Can I expect your obedience?”

“I’ll follow you, at least on this one,” Jacobs said. “Switching to voice only.”

His avatar blinked out.

Jain glanced at Xander. “Well, my old friend, are you ready for this?” When the robed Accomp hesitated, Jain glanced at the other Void Warriors. “And what about the rest of you?”

“How could we not be?” Xander finally said. “We live for this.”

6

Jain picked up a sudden burst of radiation ahead as the cloaked Nurturer vessels of Task Group A changed direction to intercept the enemy. Jain accelerated away from the Void Warriors and Task Force 88, joining those signatures before they vanished. He cut off his engines as well once his trajectory had updated. He also deactivated his comm system and engaged in radio silence so that the Void Warriors on the virtual bridge disappeared.

The hidden Nurturers moved in behind a group of Minelayers and unleashed their lightning weapons. The plasma channels arced between the ships and the mines they laid, detonating large swaths of them. The Minelayers themselves were unharmed by the lightning weapons, but the Mimics followed up with their trademark blob and skirmisher attacks. Those blobs smashed into the umbrella-shaped mining ships, taking out big chunks from their hulls. Meanwhile those skirmishers that got through their point defenses latched on and began injecting boarding party robots known as lobsters aboard, along with micro machine “termites.”

Radiation signatures appeared sporadically as Nurturer vessels updated their trajectories to take on new targets. But those momentary bursts from the inertialess drives gave them away: Teleporters appeared among the hidden ships, and must have teleported bombs inside their detected positions, because moments later the cloaked ships began to materialize.

Nearby Battlestars unleashed waves of fighters at the revealed ships. Those fighters were about three times as big as the skirmishers, and readily appeared on his camera feed.

Though they couldn’t see him, those fighters were directly in his path.

“Watch the fighters…” Xander said.

“I see them,” Jain told his Accomp. He was forced to make a directional change, momentarily giving away his position.

A Teleporter suddenly appeared directly in his path. He felt several sharp pains in his abdomen.

Damn it.

“We just took several impacts in our core region,” Xander said. “Our reactor core output is down fifty percent. Inertialess drive efficiency and weapons throughput has been similarly reduced. Countermeasures and cloak are offline.”

Jain altered course at the last moment, narrowly avoiding hitting that Teleporter.

“The hell?” Jain said. “Was that a suicide run?”

“Appears so,” Xander said. “Considering the Teleporter didn’t even try to move out of the way. I’d recommend you continue evasive maneuvers… don’t let the enemy target your insides with those bombs so readily.”

Jain began zig-zagging; he unleashed a wave of blobs and skirmishers at the Teleporter as he passed, and all of them struck. He felt more pain inside of him a moment later.

“I hate to tell you this—” Xander said.

“Yes, more breaches,” Jain interrupted. He glanced at his damage report screen. Reactor core output was the same. Damage seemed to be random this time. The zig-zagging had prevented the Teleporter from hitting critical systems. He fired more blobs at the receding vessel, but the range was enough for the craft to dodge.

Jain felt stings in his forearms, and realized he was taking laser impacts from the incoming fighters. He swerved upward to avoid the plasma beams they launched next. He considered disabling his pain sense, but it was useful for the time being—it helped him remain oriented in the fight. He launched blobs at them until he ran out of his supply, and had to wait for them to regenerate. Most of the nimble fighters were able to avoid those blobs, but a few detected the incoming projectiles too late and were swallowed up.

Despite the damage he’d taken, Jain was still faster than the shuttles, which allowed him to pull away from them; however, they still fired lasers at him relentlessly. The moment his lightning weapon recharged, he swiveled his ship about and let loose. It arced between eight of the craft, disabling them all in one fell swoop.

He continued weaving in and out of the enemy units. Staying close to the other members of Task Group A as they performed a general flyby. There was no point in maintaining radio silence, not when he was fighting in plain sight, so he reactivated his comm system and the other Void Warriors reappeared on his virtual bridge. All save Medeia, who remained cloaked. Jacobs returned to the open comm line as well, voice only, as per the indicator.

Meanwhile, while the enemies were sandwiched between Task Group A and Task Group B, Task Force 88 came in from below with the Void Warriors. They unleashed hell at the Minelayers and Battlestars that had been attempting to retreat from both groups.

“Not so eager to fight now, are they!” Gavin gloated as the vessels continued to flee before them.

Mark fired the Grunt’s black hole weapon repeatedly. The Link vessels of both races possessed inertialess drives, and they easily scooted between the emerging black holes. Mark had to fire dispersion bolts quickly—he didn’t want to cause damage to Earth.

“Probably should hold back firing any more black holes,” Jain told his friend. “Considering the proximity to Earth.”

“Probably a good idea,” Mark agreed.

Cranston launched his micro machines as he passed by a Battlestar, and the entities raked across the enemy hull, causing multiple breaches.

Medeia materialized from her cloak, slamming into a Teleporter with her sword weapon, and splitting the target in half.

Sheila activated the Wheelbarrow’s energy shield, trying to protect herself as a wave of fighters came in.

“Gavin, help Sheila out,” Jain said. “Get those fighters off her!”

“On it,” Gavin said.

He decelerated, turning toward Sheila, and when he was within range, he launched the Hippogriff’s shockwave weapon. It traveled outward in every direction, but there were gaps in it to account for the positions of the Void Warriors and other members of both fleets. One of the hapless Mimic vessels nearby decided to change course right after he launched the shockwave, and it steered right into it, taking damage along with the Link vessels.

The fighters assailing Sheila were destroyed to the last craft.

The Teleporters began to jump away from the combat, materializing just outside the range of all the ships. They headed away.

Meanwhile, the Minelayer and Battlestar classes started firing rift beams. Jain and the others continued to assault those in range, but a minute later the enemy ships created rifts and jumped en masse from the system. Jain steered toward one of those rifts, toying with the idea of following, but the tear in spacetime slammed shut before he made up his mind.

“Cowards,” Gavin said.

“Admiral Tanis of Earth Defense Force 1 just told me this is the fastest the attackers have ever fled,” Admiral Jacobs said over the open comm. “Nicely done.”

“Don’t celebrate yet,” Xander said. “I’m detecting another rift opening, this one just beyond the Teleporters.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display, and saw several red dots appearing.

“These are ship types we haven’t seen before,” Sheila continued.

“There’s nothing on these ships in our alien database,” Xander said. “Either it’s a type of ship the Mimics never encountered before, or the data was lost when we overwrote the mind of the being formerly inhabiting this AI core.”

“Jacobs, does Admiral Tanis have anything on these ships?” Jain asked the admiral.

“That’s a negative,” Jacobs replied. “The defenders have never encountered this particular ship type before.”

Jain glanced at Xander. “Get me Tempest. I want the scoop on these newcomers.”

Tempest appeared. “What can I do for you?”

“I need stats on these newcomers,” Jain said.

“These ships belong—” The alien admiral paused. “Oh.”

Sheila looked up urgently. “The alarms I injected to monitor the Mimic processes just went off. They’ve found a workaround to our virus.”

“Upload a counter virus!” Jain said.

“They’ve already shut me out…” Sheila said. “I need manual access to do anything more.”

Tempest smiled widely. “Good bye.”

The alien admiral vanished from the virtual bridge.

“The Mimic fleets are shifting into high orbit,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at his tactical map.

Flashes appeared en masse on his display.

“What’s going on?” Jain said.

“The Mimics are firing their lightning weapons at Mind Refurb defenders as they pass,” Xander said.

“That’s loyalty for you,” Gavin commented. “So much for the vaunted Mimic-Human peace treaty.”

“The Mimics are launching their rift beams, too,” Xander said. “All of them. None are bothering to cloak any longer. Looks like they’re planning on jumping out.”

“The lightning is just a parting gift,” Mark said.

“Tell Tempest I order him to stop attacking us,” Jain told the Accomp. “I want him to deactivate the rift generators, and return to low orbit immediately.”

Xander shook his head. “It’s no use. They’re not responding.”

“Well, it’s better that they betray us here, rather than while we’re alone with them in some faraway system.” Gavin glanced at Cranston. “Good thing we didn’t follow your advice and bring them with us to explore the coreward systems, huh?”

Cranston folded his arms. “I never said to do that.”

“Uh, yeah you did,” Gavin said. “Want me to replay the video stored in my archives?”

“No doubt you faked it,” Cranston said.

Gavin sighed.

A minute later the Nurturer vessels finished creating the rifts with their beams and jumped out.

“So, we’re alone with these new vessels,” Jacobs said over the open line. “Looks like you no longer have the bigger fleet after all. Guess that means you’re no longer in command.”

“I am of my Void Warriors,” Jain insisted.

“I’ll grant you that,” Jacobs said. “But right now, Admiral Tanis is asking for attack pattern delta fifty-five. Don’t suppose your Void Warriors would mind assuming the starboard side of that formation. I’m marking it on the tactical display.”

Dashed green lines appeared on the display, indicating the courses the Void Warriors should follow to join the formation.

“We’ll be there,” Jain said.

The Void Warriors maneuvered their warships into place, joining the other ships in the defensive configuration. It was essentially a wedge formation in three dimensions. Jain and the Void Warriors were on the rightmost side.

The thirty new enemy ships closed, alongside the ten Farseeker Teleporters. Jain zoomed in. The new ships looked like uprooted trees: the top portions were composed of branches spanning outward from thick trunks, while the bottom portions had similar branches, but they ended in extensive, threadlike root systems.

“Am I the only one who feels like we’re fighting trees?” Sheila asked.

Medeia was absent from the virtual bridge, because she was cloaked somewhere out there.

“How are we doing on repairs to the cloaking device and countermeasures?” Jain asked Xander.

“Won’t be ready in time for the next engagement,” his Accomp told him.

“Probably for the best…” Jain glanced at the nose cam feed. “The cloak just gives me a false sense of confidence anyway.”

“They took you out fairly quickly last time” Gavin commented.

“Yes,” Jain agreed. “Targeted me with their Teleporters as soon as I changed directions. Quick bastards.”

The Tree vessels approached.

When they were within range, Jacobs said: “Tanis wants all black hole vessels to begin herding pattern twenty two. You are to engage all ships that pass through the funnel.”

Jain glanced at Mark. “You heard the man.”

Mark began firing black hole bolts with the Grunt. Other members of Task Force 88 and Earth Defense Force 1 launched similar bolts in a circular pattern so that some of the enemy vessels were forced to travel down the center of the tunnel formed by the resultant black holes. The new ships obviously had inertialess drives, judging from the ease with which they navigated between the openings.

“It’s too bad Earth still only has a few experimental ships with the inertialess drive tech installed,” Gavin said. “Would have been a big help here.”

“We have to work with what we have,” Jain said. “Target the ships inside the nearest black hole tunnel. Fire at will.”

Jain unleashed several blobs and skirmishers toward the trapped ships. The other Void Warriors fired missiles. Other defenders unleashed energy cannons.

Most of the Trees didn’t bother to move out of the way of the incoming objects. Instead, they shimmered as the blobs and energy bolts reached them, and the projectiles passed right through. Once each weapon passed, they rematerialized.

“What the…” Sheila said.

“Faders,” Gavin said.

“You know them?” Mark asked.

“No, just made it up,” Gavin replied.

“They won’t be able to dodge laser attacks,” Jain said. “Nor my lightning weapon. Concentrate your fire on the same target areas. Here.” He highlighted a spot on the closest Tree. “Sync with my firing array.” He waited until all the sync indicators were green, and then he unleashed his lightning weapon. The lasers of the Void Warriors fired at the same time, targeting the same spot.

His target took the hit dead on. The attack caused a large branch to break away, but the vessel continued its approach.

Mark and the others with black holes quickly fired dispersion bolts to eliminate the tears in spacetime.

Meanwhile, the Trees began to fire what could best be described as energy whip weapons. The long, thin beams of bright light swept through space. One such whip headed for Jain’s ship, but he was able to dodge it with his inertialess drives. Other defenders with their Delta V-based Newtonian drives couldn’t move out of the way in time, and were cut in half. The Void Warriors were spared any impacts, thankfully.

“Whip Trees!” Gavin said.

“Think I’ll just call them ‘Trees,’” Cranston commented.

Other ships throughout the fleet had learned from Jain’s example, and concentrated laser fire on the Trees, carving away branches. The Trees began to flicker in and out randomly in an effort to avoid the lasers, but it was essentially impossible for them to time their fade outs with the attacks, given that the heavy lasers fired in nanosecond pulses. And it seemed they couldn’t exist in the “faded” state for more than a few seconds at a time, so the defenders simply waited until the targeted Tree in question finished its latest fading, and then opened fire.

But then the Teleporters came in.

One appeared directly in front of Jain.

“Emergency dive!” he said, taking control himself as he said the words.

He narrowly dropped out of the enemy’s path. He felt multiple stabs of pain within his intestines, and realized the Teleporter had deployed more bombs inside him. He started zig-zagging and the pain subsided.

“Damn it,” Jain said. He fired all the blobs in his reserve bays. He got several direct hits, and the vessel broke apart.

A Tree came right at him. Jain accelerated his time sense, and used the slower external reality to navigate around the energy whip the Tree threw at him. It was tricky, because when he dodged out of the way, the long stream of energy followed him, forcing him to accelerate.

Medeia materialized then, her sword section cutting deep into the Tree.

She reappeared on the bridge. “Crap. Think I’m stuck.”

The Arcane struggled for a few moments, embedded within the enemy vessel, but then she finally slipped through.

“Whew.” She vanished once more.

The Tree in question was out of action. The Void Warriors and nearby members of Task Force 88 unleashed missiles at the craft and broke it apart.

Another Teleporter appeared next to him, but Jain continued zig-zagging, and avoided most of the bombs it tried to teleport inside of him. He took a few hits, but his power output remained stable. He fired his blobs at near point blank range, and eliminated that vessel, as well.

“Something tells me they won’t be trying to teleport so close to us again,” Xander said.

“Probably not,” Jain agreed. Considering how effective their last two teleport attacks had been…

Admiral Jacobs came over the line. “Tanis tells me the defenders have discovered a potential weak spot on the Tree ships. If you can cut away all the different branches composing the root system underneath the ship, their inertialess drives will go offline. They’ll still have that energy whip weapon, though, so you’ll have to watch out for it. Stay beyond fifteen thousand kilometers and it can’t touch you. Lasers do a good job of cutting through those roots… you won’t even have to combine your shots for the thinner ones on the extremities.”

“Too bad my lightning weapon has a max range of six thousand kilometers,” Jain said, diving toward the next Tree. “Void Warriors, shave some of these branches for me.”

The raptor lasers of the Void Warriors activated. Most of those lasers were fully charged, so the intensity was strong, and branches readily dropped away, floating into space.

Jain approached within firing range of the enemy weapon, and that energy whip appeared. Once more he accelerated his time sense and evaded it.

The Tree began flickering, doing its best to avoid the laser attacks, but Jain ignored that. When he reached the six thousand kilometer range, he fired his lightning weapon. It struck while the target existed in this reality, during its “fade in” mode, and to his delight the bolt arced between multiple root segments, breaking off each one.

It took a second pass with the Void Warriors to finish the job, but then the Tree’s inertialess drives went offline, and it drifted away toward Mars.

The fight continued for another ten minutes, with the defenders slowly wearing down the attackers, until at last the Link ships retreated. They moved fast, far faster than the defenders could. Jain, with his inertialess drives, was the only one who could potentially match them, but he wasn’t about to follow them alone. That would make him an easy target.

Medeia reappeared on the bridge, having deactivated her cloaking device.

The enemy ships began regrouping next to the moon. When all of them had arrived, they made no further attack attempts.

“So, they’re just going to sit there?” Jain asked no one in particular.

Jacobs answered over the open comm. “Tanis tells me this behavior is typical after an attack. They’ll retreat, regroup, and while the Mind Refurbs lick their wounds, they plan their next strike. Usually they wait until reinforcements arrive.”

“How long does that usually take?” Jain said.

“Depends,” Jacobs told him. “Tanis says anywhere from an hour, to a day. So we might be in for a long wait.”

“Unless we bring the attack to the enemy,” Jain said.

“That’s certainly a possibility,” Jacobs said.

“Couldn’t they use the moon to their advantage?” Mark said. “I mean, they could have ships hidden behind it.”

“No,” Jacobs said. “We still have observational satellites scattered throughout the system. If any Link ships jump behind the moon, we’ll know.”

“Well, I guess we have a bit of respite, then,” Jain said. “Until we decide our next move. Or the enemy decides for us.”

There was a flash on the display.

“What was that?” Jain asked.

“A ship just activated its rift beam, and is preparing to jump out,” Xander replied.

“No doubt to call reinforcements,” Medeia said.

Mark rubbed his chin. “How many do you think they’re going to bring back?”

“I don’t know,” Medeia told him. “But it’s probably going to be quite a few. They probably weren’t expecting the resistance Earth offered, and I’m sure they want to crush us as soon as possible. So yeah, quite a few.”

“It’s too bad we lost the Mimic fleet,” Cranston said, giving Sheila an accusing look. “We could have really used their help.”

“Don’t look at me,” Sheila said. “I did my best with the knowledge and skills available to me. They are operating alien technology after all.”

“It’s not her fault,” Jain said. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. But the Mimics are gone now, and there’s nothing we can do about it. No point moping about it. We’ll just have to fight without them. Jacobs, any chance of recalling some of the ships from the Eastern Galactic Front to help out here?”

“That’s a no,” Jacobs said. “Tanis says they’re fully occupied, just like we are. They’re transporting the colonists out of the system as fast as they’re able, while defending the world with their warships.”

“Too bad we don’t have the luxury of evacuation here,” Jain said. There were simply too many people to evacuate. Even though half of Earth was uninhabited, that still left over ten billion people.

“So, we’re stuck with the ships we have,” Cranston said.

Jain nodded.

He dearly hoped it would be enough.

Another flash appeared on the display as the enemy ship jumped out.

7

Eric stood at the bow of the sailing ship. It was night, and the ocean lay spread out before him. It was translucent, that ocean, allowing him to see the stars beyond. Above, the points of light in the sky were generated from the external camera feed he was feeding to the virtual reality environment. There was another sailing ship on the ocean, commanded by Slate. The other vessels of the Banthar space navy were spread out on the ocean to his right, all the way to the far horizon of the ocean. Those were merely the virtual representations of the actual starships of course, essentially miniatures of the behemoths they represented. The actual vessels were visible in the night sky above, looking like dots spread out in a long line.

Though he couldn’t see it at the moment, each of those vessels was sheathed in a micro machine swarm in the real world. A very useful defensive feature. And great for offense, too, when getting close to other ships.

Eric had a tactical display overlaying his HUD, and it gave him a map of all those same vessels around him, with his own located in the very center of the map at all times. All of the other vessels of the space navy, save for Slate’s, were controlled by autonomous Banthar AIs that answered directly to Eric.

Eric commanded one of the Banthar motherships that had originally invaded Earth. He named it the Bethunia. In its control center, he carried androids harboring the AI cores of Bambi, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Dickson, Frogger, and Sarge. Slate’s vessel, the Bug Killer, in turn harbored the androids of Dunnigan, Eagleeye, Hicks, Mickey, Traps, and Tread.

Eric had sent automatons into the rift generator in Little Earth that led to New York, and discovered the city was under attack by strange cylindrical aliens and bioweapons. He deployed several waves of Sloth units to help the human forces and managed to wipe out the alien attackers, though at the cost of most of the Sloth units he sent. He tapped into the local Internet and determined that other cities throughout the planet were similarly infected with attackers. He wasn’t able to create rifts to all those other cities, since he didn’t have endpoints set up in any of them. He contacted the local governor, who agreed to help transport more defending robots to different cities across North and South America. He recalled mechs and other machines of war from across Banthar Prime, and had them travel through the rift to New York so that the governor could transport them as needed.

So that problem was being dealt with, sort of. But in the meantime, the planet was still under attack from orbit. According to the MilNet, the Mind Refurb space navy was in big trouble, and their defenses would soon buckle, leaving Earth vulnerable to deadly attacks from above.

But not if Eric could help it.

He turned around. Behind him, those Bolt Eaters he carried aboard lounged at various spots across the virtual deck. Slate and the androids he carried in turn were absent, though they were still connected, voice only, over the comm line.

While Eric’s consciousness was still spread out across the distributed network on Banthar Prime, he was able to remotely operate the Bethunia via the rift gates in orbit above the planet. These opened permanent rifts that allowed him to maintain communications even across star systems. By stringing out signal repeaters on the other side of the destination rift, he could venture quite a ways from the endpoint while still maintaining relatively lag-free operations. He also had androids and mechs aboard that he could switch to, if needed.

“You know, this little setup of yours isn’t all that fair,” Slate complained over the comm. “While the rest of us are trapped inside these Banthar death buckets you call ships, you’re safely tucked in bed, steering everything from the comfort of your home. We die, we’re gone. But if you die, you snap back into that distributed consciousness of yours back on Banthar Prime. Nicely done, Scorpion.” That was his old call sign.

“I’d go with you if I could,” Eric said.

“Yeah, I wish you’d told me that there was no going back when you had me install my consciousness in this thing,” Slate said. “Being in control of a starship seems like a fun thing, at first. Until you realize it’s permanent.”

Eric glanced at the Bolt Eaters who lounged on the deck around him. “Are you guys ready to jump?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose,” Frogger said. He was based on the same original mind scan as Eric, and their personalities were quite similar owing to that. They shared the same memories of life growing up in the city, of their various programming jobs, and of Molly. Frogger’s avatar had looked essentially identical to Eric’s at first, but his mind twin had made subtle modifications over the years to differentiate himself from Eric, mostly in the clothing department. These days he could usually be found wearing a leather biker jacket, distressed black jeans with leather patches, brown Chelsea boots, a T-shirt with a Medusa head logo in the center, a straight-rimmed fedora over buzzed hair, dark shades that hid his eyes, and a well-oiled goatee.

Whereas Eric dressed in a Hawaiian T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

“All right, Bolt Eaters,” Eric said. “It’s time to jump. Sarge, would you like to give the order? For old times’ sake?”

Marlborough smiled patiently, causing the crow’s feet at his eyes to crinkle up. “I appreciate the gesture, but you’re in command now, Scorpion. I don’t give orders: I take them. I’m just a grunt. I prefer it this way.” He looked away, gazing out across the ocean, and scratched his grizzled beard.

Eric sighed. He kind of missed the old Sarge, but after Eric had injected his consciousness into the planet-wide network of the Banthar homeworld, something had changed within the man. Marlborough had abdicated command instantly, apparently no longer feeling worthy of leading the Bolt Eaters. Eric probably would have felt the same if he had been the commanding officer, and the mind of one of his subordinates had suddenly expanded to encompass an entire planet, controlling all the computer systems of that world and becoming the de facto ruler of an entire alien race at the same time. Yes, Eric would have felt rather small in comparison.

“Dee, open up the rift and take us through,” Eric said. He turned around to gaze at the ocean and the stars beyond that were fed to the virtual environment via the realtime camera feed.

The craft fired its generation beam and a minute later the rift opened up in front of the ship; the virtual ocean partially obscured it, and he increased the transparency of that ocean until it was barely visible at all, and the seagoing ships almost seemed to float amid the stars.

The vessel passed through and the constellations changed.

“Confirm destination,” Eric said.

“We’re in Earth system,” Dee intoned. “Midway between Mars and Jupiter, close to the asteroid belt.”

Eric nodded. “A bit farther than I intended, but close enough. Thank you.”

He pulled the craft ahead, allowing the other ships to enter through the rift behind them. The other Banthar vessels were capable of creating their own rifts, of course, but Eric wanted them to emerge in the same general area, rather than having them appear randomly across the system.

When the others were all through, he released his rift generation beam, and the tear in spacetime began to close. He launched the portable rift gate he carried aboard, and the vessel decelerated rapidly, coming to a full stop just outside the collapsing rift. It launched a much smaller beam that halted the collapse of the rift, leaving open a permanent, tiny tear in spacetime. It was through that spatial rip Eric would remain in control of the vessel. In case the connection ever severed, Frogger and the others resided in the control center, ready to take over. They were all protected by the Curator, an incredibly effective anti-penetration robot formed of micro machines.

As the Bethunia journeyed away from the rift, Eric launched repeaters every half a million kilometers to maintain a lag-free uplink.

“Dee, let me know when you’re able to get a bead on Earth,” Eric said. “I want to know what we’re up against.”

A few minutes later Dee said: “I’ve detected several Mind Refurb ships in orbit above Earth. There is an alien ship among them… pyramidal in shape. According to the Banthar cloud database, it’s a vessel belonging to a Link species. Though keep in mind that the last time that database was updated was over a hundred years ago. That particular species might have switched allegiances, and could be on the side of Earth.”

“Or Mind Refurbs from Earth could have simply captured it,” Eric said. “There’s nothing else out there?”

“Next to the moon, I’m detecting more vessels, these ones belonging to other Link member races,” Dee said. “One vessel class is capable of teleportation. The other can phase in and out of existence, and fires an energy whip type of weapon.”

“Which is which?” Slate said. “One class looks like a tree, the other a dick.”

“Both look like dicks to me,” Mickey commented.

“Everything looks like a dick to you!” Slate said.

“Not true,” Mickey said. “Take you, for example. You look like a pussy to me.”

“Uh,” Slate said. “Do you want me to eject you from one of the torpedo ports of my ship?”

“No…” Mickey said.

“Then shut the eff up!” Slate said. “Because you’re basically inside my body right now, bro. And to me, you’re like some foreign, unwanted bacteria inhabiting my gut! Do you get me?”

“I think I do,” Mickey told him. “You’re saying you need a colon cleanse, huh?”

Eric could almost feel Slate boiling over in the ship next to him. He was probably close to ejecting Mickey’s android.

“Slate, I’m going to have to ask you to take it down a few notches,” Eric said. “Calm the hell down. You’re in control. Not Mickey. Don’t let him get to you. You’re better than this.”

Slate paused. Then: “Sorry, boss. Mickey, you’re a prick. But I won’t space you. I love you too much for that, bro.”

“Oh, and I love you too,” Mickey said. He added, softer: “Not really.”

“So which ship is which?” Slate pressed.

“The tree shaped vessels are the faders,” Dee said. “The others, the Teleporters.”

When the Banthar fleet passed Mars, Dee made an announcement.

“We’re receiving a signal from Earth,” Dee said. “Would you like to hear it?”

“I would,” Eric said.

Dee didn’t answer.

“I would,” Eric repeated.

“Sorry, I can’t understand you right now, let’s try again later,” Dee said.

Brontosaurus guffawed from where he was seated on the wooden deck. The heavy gunner’s avatar sported biceps bigger than most people’s thighs. “You’ve got your mind installed in an AI core with more computing power than most countries, and you can’t even get it to recognize a simple voice command.”

“That’s what happens when you pair buggy human software with super advanced alien hardware,” Dickson commented. The staff sergeant was chomping down on his usual cigar. “You’re going to bring down the alien hardware to the human level. The law of the lowest common denominator.”

Eric shook his head. “Yeah, I hate to admit it, but sometimes Dee reminds me of the ancient cellphone I used to have back in the twenty-first century.”

“Apple or Android?” Mickey said over the comm.

“Uh, both?” Eric said. “Siri was just as bad as Google Assistant.”

“You should have been born a few decades later,” Slate sent. “The virtual assistants of my day could understand my voice even when I rapped my commands.”

“You would rap your commands,” Eagleeye said over the comm.

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Slate rapped. “Wipity wop bop my bitch, tell me where I can find the hitch?”

“Yeah, he’s rapping his commands,” Eagleeye transmitted. “Though I have no idea what the hell he’s asking his Accomp.”

“Well if the virtual assistants of your day could understand you when you rapped, then obviously we’ve regressed, considering what my Accomp just did to me,” Eric pulled up his voice settings menu.

“Maybe your Accomp just hates your guts,” Slate said. “Something like that isn’t unheard of.”

“If any of our Accomps hate us, it would be yours,” Eagleeye commented. “Rapping your commands. Sheesh. If I was your Accomp, I’d delete myself.”

Eric ran a quick voice retraining session with Dee, and after going through a list of twenty words, he tried his command again.

“Dee, let’s hear the message from Earth,” Eric commanded.

“Playing the message from Earth,” Dee said.

“This is Admiral Tanis of the Earth Defense Force 1,” a deep voice said. “Unidentified ships, state your intentions immediately, or face destruction.”

“Interesting way to greet newcomers,” Dunnigan commented over the comm in his London accent. “Considering that if we really were aliens, we probably wouldn’t be able to understand Modern English.”

“Well, these aliens do understand English,” Eric commented.

“You’d think they’d be expecting us,” Crusher said. “You did say we’d be coming.”

“Maybe they were…” Eric said. “Until enemy reinforcements arrived. Dee, send this back: this is Eric Scala, former Mind Refurb and member of the Bolt Eaters, now Essential of Banthar Prime. I received your distress call, and I’m here to help.”

Eric had jury-rigged a comm system compatible with Earth technology and installed it in the Bethunia; so sending a compatible message back wouldn’t be a problem. Nor would real-time communications once they were in range.

Five minutes later he received the reply. “Thank the stars. We weren’t sure if you were only sending boots on the ground to New York. Thank you for heeding the call to fight for us one last time. We need you, Heroes, to save Earth.”

“I hate it when they call us heroes,” Slate said over the line. “Makes it feel like we’re obliged to help them, you know?”

“Dee,” Eric said. “Send this: ‘I sent troops to New York, but the local governor promised they would be distributed to cities across the continent. So I wasn’t only sending troops to one city.”

The reply came in five minutes. “Yes, they are being distributed. But I meant, we weren’t sure if you were going to help with the situation in orbit, too. Looks like you’ll be here within the next three hours. I just hope it’s before the Link decides to make its next attack.”

Eric glanced at those ships lurking next to the moon on his tactical display. “I hope so, too.”

8

Eric continued flying the Banthar fleet to Earth, and Tanis updated him on the situation in orbit along the way.

When he reached realtime range, Eric connected with Tanis and piped his avatar into the current VR environment so that the youngish looking man appeared on the deck.

“Welcome aboard, Admiral,” Eric said.

Tanis paused to survey his surroundings. That he could see them in the first place was because Eric had invited him to enter his VR directly as part of the communication. “Interesting choice of virtual realities. Though I suppose I’ve seen even more outlandish among the fleet.”

Eric shrugged. “It seemed the most suitable, given the task at hand. We’re used to operating on the ground. This space stuff is new to us.”

“I’m sure it is,” Tanis said. “But I heard you were a fast learner. You’d have to be, to save the world as many times as you have.”

Eric smiled gratefully. “I appreciate the kind words. So tell me what you want me to do.”

The admiral relayed his assault plan, and finished with: “We’re not going to wait for them to strike. We attack now, before more reinforcements arrive.”

“From what you’ve told us so far,” Slate said from the Bug Killer, “these aliens usually call for reinforcements after we attack.”

“That’s very true,” Tanis said. “But this time, I’m worried they’ll call for help early, thanks to your arrival. Already one of their ships has jumped out.”

“Then I guess the sooner we attack, the better,” Eric said.

He issued the necessary commands to guide the Banthar fleet into their designated positions for the coming fight. The remaining Mind Refurb defenders were already heading toward the moon to engage the enemy.

“By the way, what’s with the pyramid ship?” Dickson asked.

“One of ours,” Tanis replied. “A few years back, a new race of aliens decided to attack Earth. Their ships were all AI operated… one of our Mind Refurbs managed to inject his mind into it.”

“Nice,” Dickson said.

“You can look up the full details of his history on the GalNet,” Tanis said. “Search for Void Warriors.”

Eric accelerated his time sense and did just that.

When he was done reading, he reverted to normal time.

“Impressive,” Eric said. “I think I’d like to talk to him, considering I have a little idea of what’s it’s like to have my consciousness embedded inside an alien vessel. Or to be more exact, an alien world.”

“Go ahead,” Tanis said. “We still have a few minutes until we make contact.”

The fleet continued toward the moon. Eric upped his time sense once more, and had Dee call the Mind Refurb in charge of the “Nurturer” ship he’d read about on the GalNet.

“Send the request along with an invitation to join me in full VR mode,” Eric said. “I want to bring him out of whatever VR environment he’s currently in.”

“Will do,” Dee said.

“Aren’t you curious to see what the inside of his ship looks like?” Tread asked from the Bug Killer.

“Well, yes,” Eric replied. “But I have a feeling his own VR environment will be nothing like it. Consider mine…”

“Good point,” Tread said.

A moment later the holographic image of a man appeared on the deck. He wore a thick beard, and his expression seemed haunted slightly, as of a man who had seen too much. He stood straight, head high.

Interesting choice of avatar.

It probably reflected who he was as a person very accurately.

“Eric Scala,” Jain said. The Mind Refurb would have automatically switched to the same time sense as Eric upon accepting the call. Eric hadn’t pushed that time acceleration too far, instead increasing it just enough to halt external reality—if he chose his maximum possible sense, he’d easily outpace even Jain’s alien AI core, thanks to the planet-wide network backing Eric’s mind.

“That’s me,” Eric said.

Jain nodded, then ran his gaze across the other Bolt Eaters. When that was done, he took a moment to survey the virtual sailing ship, and the translucent ocean beyond, saying nothing.

“You were a SEAL?” Dickson asked.

Jain returned his attention to him. “That’s right. You checked my file?”

“No,” Dickson said. “You have the look.”

Jain nodded slowly. “I used to aspire to be like you and the Bolt Eaters.”

Eric wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Used to?”

“I’ve come to realize that saving Earth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Jain said.

“No, it’s not,” Eric agreed.

“The sacrifices involved, the pain…” Jain shook his head. “Then there’s the lack of gratitude. Sometimes it seems like the people of Earth feel that we owe it to them to save them, when the exact opposite is true. They owe us, if anything. They were the ones who put our minds into machines.”

“Someone’s not bitter or anything…” Crusher commented. “Though I do agree with you.”

Jain smiled faintly at her words. “I suppose it’s not all darkness and suffering though. Good things do come. Opportunities that ordinary men never get.”

“Like having your mind installed in an alien warship?” Eric asked.

“Exactly so,” Jain answered. “Though sometimes I wonder if this is an opportunity, or a curse.”

“I’ve wondered the same,” Eric told him.

“I’m sure we all have,” Brontosaurus interjected.

Jain glanced at the big man before returning his attention to Eric. “Your mind is tied to the neural network spanning the entire Banthar homeworld?”

Eric nodded. “It is.”

“I can only imagine how much processing power is at your fingertips,” Jain said. “And I thought my current mind was vast…”

“Yes, and I’ve only scratched the surface of my potential so far,” Eric said. “Occasionally it feels like I’m evolving into something beyond a Mind Refurb.”

“Try not to get a big head,” Bambi said.

Eric couldn’t help allowing his avatar’s head to balloon in size at the comment, and Bambi giggled. Crusher tossed a pin, and when it hit him, Eric made a show of letting his head “pop.” He reset his avatar a moment later.

“You’re nothing like I imagined any of you to be,” Jain said.

“What did you expect?” Sarge said. “A bunch of grim-faced, war-torn old soldiers whose backs and outlooks were bent by the weight of a world?”

“Something like that,” Jain agreed. “You’ve certainly got a better outlook, and much more humor than I would have ever expected, for what you’ve been through. But you are a hardened bunch, I get that sense. You’re not a group I’d want to mess with.”

“Well I’m glad we have that clear,” Sarge said.

Jain returned his attention to Eric. “But all joking aside, what you said earlier, about evolving into something more than a Mind Refurb, I think it’s already happened. Hell, you’re a planet. Of course you’ve already advanced far beyond the rest of us.”

“Just because my mind is a thousand times more powerful than yours, doesn’t actually make me a thousand times better than you.” Eric said.

“I heard you were humble,” Jain said. “That’s probably a good thing, for someone in your position.”

“Probably,” Eric said. “But if I’m humble, it’s because of these guys.” He jerked his head toward the Bolt Eaters on the deck with him. “But I do mean it: I don’t really feel like I’m better than the typical Mind Refurb. Sure, I can solve problems faster, and make decisions in the blink of an eye if I have to, but I still have to interface with the real world, a world that operates at a far slower speed.”

“So it’s the real world that brings you down,” Jain said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Basically. If I lived only in my head, I probably wouldn’t have any problems.”

“But if you did that, one day you’d simply cease to exist, when the Link decided to show up at your door and collect their fee,” Jain said.

“Exactly right,” Eric said. “And if not the Link, then some other opportunistic invader. Still, a part of me wonders if it’s worth it. A part of me just wants to walk away and leave the Banthar to their machinations, while I live out my life in my mind, my AI core drifting toward the edges of the galaxy in a small ship. Hell, sometimes I just want to set a course for the Andromeda galaxy, decrease my time sense to speed up external reality, and then spend the next eon drifting there. Maybe I’d even shut myself down, with a timer to wake me when I arrived.”

Jain studied him for a moment. “Have you ever considered pulling your mind out of Banthar Prime?”

“I have,” Eric replied. “But I don’t think it’s even possible to extricate myself, not without destroying the neural network in the process.”

“Hm,” Jain said. “I should send you some of the work I and my team have put together regarding consciousness relocation. We routinely transfer our consciousnesses in and out of our existing neural cores, with no damage to the individual servers involved.”

“You’ve done it with your alien neural network, too?” Eric asked. “Moved in and out?”

“Multiple times,” Jain said.

“Hm,” Eric said. “That’s certainly good news.”

“Hell yeah,” Slate said over the comm. “I thought I was trapped in the Bug Killer for the rest of eternity.”

“I can relay the details if you’d like to take a look…” Jain offered.

“Please do,” Eric said.

He received a sharing request a moment later and accepted. He performed a virus scan, then perused the data. He sent it along to Slate when he was done.

“This is certainly useful,” Eric said. “Though I’m worried if I vacate my consciousness from the alien homeworld, only automated processes will be left in place running Banthar Prime. There’s always an issue that crops up, something needing manual intervention, despite all the automation I’ve put into play. The issues will add up.”

“Deal with them when you return,” Jain said.

“No, I don’t have to,” Eric said. “I’m already set up to operate remotely for the time being, so it’s not really a pressing issue.”

“Your consciousness is on your homeworld right now?” Jain said.

“Uh huh.”

“How’d you manage that?” Jain said.

“Tiny rift gates, left open 24/7,” Eric told him.

“You’ll have to teach me how to do that sometime,” Jain said.

As a thank you to Jain for the consciousness transference docs, Eric immediately transmitted the specs.

“I appreciate it,” Jain said. It looked like he was about to make his farewells, but then he glanced at one Bolt Eater in particular. “I can’t leave without asking… you’re Frogger, right?”

Eric’s mind twin grinned. “Good guess.”

“What’s it like, working together with your clone?” Jain asked.

Frogger shrugged. “It’s not much different than working with any other Mind Refurb. I don’t really think of Scorpion—Eric—as my clone. A brother, maybe. Possibly a twin. But clone, no.”

Jain nodded. “I’ve considered cloning my own consciousness on multiple occasions, but always held back. I kind of feel the universe has enough Jain Sagans.”

“It has more than enough Eric Scalas,” Frogger agreed. “The two of us have a bit of an ego, and we know it. He wasn’t kidding when he said the other Bolt Eaters help bring us down to Earth. Without them, our egos would be out of control.”

“But it must be nice to bounce ideas off of someone of like mind,” Jain said.

Frogger chuckled. “You would think, but usually when I talk to Scorpion, it’s like I’m talking to myself. The whole echo chamber sort of deal. There’re no real fresh ideas when we brainstorm. But that’s why we have a big team.”

“I suppose so,” Jain said. “It was nice meeting you all. I hope that when this battle is done, I see all of you again.”

The unsaid message was clear: I hope you all survive.

“I hope we see you, too,” Eric said. “Actually, scratch that. I know we’ll all see each other again. We’re the Bolt Eaters. And you’re the Void Warriors. We don’t truly die. We’ve got backups.”

Jain hesitated. “Do you really believe that? The part about not truly dying?”

“No,” Eric said immediately.

Jain nodded. “Neither do I. New versions are no replacement for the originals.”

“No, they’re not,” Eric agreed.

With that, Jain bid the Bolt Eaters farewell, and logged out.

Eric glanced at his companions. “Well, that was interesting.”

“He seems like a nice guy,” Traps said over the comm from the Bug Killer. “But whether or not that translates into a good fighter, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“You don’t end up with your consciousness inside a stolen alien warship if you’re not good at what you do,” Eric commented. “I think the coming battle will go well.”

9

Jason lounged in the couch of his VR mountain cabin. Seated across from him was Queen Risilan, wearing a resplendent red and gold gown, with a tiara resting on her curly red hair. A teardrop brooch hung down from the tiara and onto her forehead. Her face was covered in a layer of thick white makeup.

She sipped tea from a small white cup, then set it down on the glass coffee table that separated them.

“I don’t know,” she said finally.

He sighed. “If you don’t help us, no one else will.”

“Already the Tyrnari have earned the enmity of the Link,” she said. “They weren’t happy when I tried to renegotiate the terms of our membership. In the fifty years since, we’ve had to endure twenty short term wars, lasting from weeks to months, with only a few years of peace in between. Our space navy is wearing thin. Not to mention our ground forces.” She shook her head. “We can’t afford to send any ships to your Earth.”

“It doesn’t have to be your whole fleet,” he said. “Just a few ships. Twenty.”

“Twenty is more than a few,” she said. “Our navy is down to sixty, right now.”

“By joining forces with Earth, you’ll be stronger in the long run,” Jason said. “We’ll be committed to helping you in return, going forward. Who knows, maybe together, our two races will be able to wipe out the threat of the Link forevermore. By bloodying their noses a few times, we’ll teach them very quickly that it’s not the wisest idea to attack our worlds.”

She smiled patiently. “We bloodied their noses the first few times, as you say. But they kept coming. And soon it was our noses that were bloodied. No good can come from this.”

“Then we won’t stop after bloodying their noses,” Jason said. “We’ll press on to the Link homeworld, and teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget. We’ll take over the Link.”

She laughed. “Illusions of grandeur, anyone? No, it’s not so simple. There isn’t one single Link homeworld. Each member race has its own homeworld. If you manage to subdue one homeworld, there are a hundred others that will remain.”

“Then we attack the homeworlds of the most influential members,” Jason said. “And take control of them, if we can.”

She sighed. “Your naivety knows no bounds. One cannot simply walk into Mordor.”

“Huh?” he said.

She giggled. “Never mind. I’ve been delving through the archives you shared with me; I thought you’d get the reference. It’s not important. What I meant was, taking out the homeworld of the most influential Link races will essentially be impossible. The defenses are unlike anything you’ve ever seen. You just don’t understand.”

Jason closed his eyes, and lay back. “All right. I guess I made a mistake in coming here.”

“Why not stay?” Risilan cooed. She had teleported her avatar to his couch, so that she pressed against his side.

He glanced at her in surprise. “Uh, no. I’m not doing this. Especially not now.” He shoved away from her.

She pouted. “What? Don’t you find me attractive?”

“First of all, you’re an alien, and you look nothing like your avatar in real life,” Jason said.

She shrugged. “That didn’t stop you before.”

“I was a lot hornier in my youth,” Jason said. “Trust me, when you have virtual sex as much as I do, you grow bored of it very quickly. And back to what I was saying… second of all, you’re not helping me, so why should I pleasure you?”

“If you have sex with me, maybe I’ll help you in some small way,” Risilan said.

“Oh really,” Jason said. “A moment ago you told me that you couldn’t afford to lend me any ships.”

Risilan tittered. “Oh, you’re such a dear. I never said anything about lending you ships.”

Jason frowned. “Then why should I bother still being here?”

“What if I could offer you a new weapon?” Risilan said.

“I’m listening,” Jason said.

“We still have hundreds of bioweapons left over from the days when our planet was a breeding ground for the things,” Risilan said. “There are still large regions on this continent that are uninhabitable, and filled with these bioweapons. I could harvest some of them, and give them to you.”

“Well, I guess that would certainly help with the land-based attacks my homeworld is experiencing,” Jason said. “But it doesn’t change the situation in orbit.”

“I’ll give the authorization as soon as I log out of your VR,” Risilan said. “So we’ll have sex now?”

He shook his head.

She got up, and went to the window that overlooked his mountain lake. “When I was a child growing up in the Imperial family under the auspices of Duke Malbeck, who spared me alone among the members of my family, all I could think of was killing him to get my vengeance, and taking back the throne that rightfully belonged to me. And now that I have it after all these years, I sometimes wonder why I ever thought this was a good thing. I wonder if I should have left the throne in his hands. Do you know why?”

Jason stared at her, saying nothing. If this was some play at sympathy to get him to sleep with her, he wasn’t going to buy into it.

Maybe I’m being too hard on her, he scolded himself.

“I wonder these things,” Risilan continued. “Because sometimes, it’s just so hard. Ruling, I mean. I second guess myself more times than I would like. And I constantly have to worry about assassination attempts. There is a small but vocal minority that demands we rejoin the Link, you see… and they don’t mind sending assassins. It’s during these trying times that I have to remind myself of the good that has come from my rule. The bioweapons production I’ve shut down, and the domes I’ve had removed when the atmosphere became stable enough. I’m slowly returning our homeworld back to the way it was before Duke Malbeck took over. But yes, sometimes it’s hard to rule. Like when you come to me, and ask the impossible of me. I am indebted to you, for what you did for my world, and yet the repayment you ask for that debt is too high.”

“I’m not asking the impossible,” Jason said. “I just want you to loan me a few of your ships for a little while. You don’t even have to commit to something long term. We can take this one battle at a time.”

“I—” she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

With that, she logged out.

Jason sighed, and sat back on the couch. He repositioned to the chair beside the window where Risilan had been standing, and gazed out at the lake beyond, and the beautiful mountain that towered over it.

Lori entered a short time later, her tail swaying behind her. “She said no, didn’t she?” She sat on the couch next to the chair, letting her blonde hair tumble over the headrest. Her long tail curled around the edges to rest close to his leg; the hair tickled his calf, and he shifted his legs away from her.

“She said no,” Jason told her.

“Well, on the bright side, at least we escaped the alien invasion,” Lori said. “We can wait here until the dust settles back on Earth. Who knows, maybe we’ll even stay?”

“Right now, our mechs are residing in what could best be described as a dungeon, cooped up with the Rex Wolves,” Aria said, entering. She looked as vampirish as ever. But beautiful as hell. “I don’t think this is the most ideal situation.”

She sat down on the couch opposite Lori, who pouted. Obviously she had been hoping for some quality alone time with Jason, but she wasn’t going to get it.

Good.

He wasn’t in the mood for sex, not with anyone.

“Why does it matter where our bodies are physically?” Lori gestured at her surroundings. “Especially since we’re here, and can fashion our virtual world however we please. And at least they’re feeding the Rex Wolves, so we don’t have to worry about them suddenly taking a bite out of our faces while we’re in here. Not that they eat metal anyway, but hey, you know what hunger can do!”

“It matters,” Aria said. “Besides, even if they move us to better quarters, we’re not necessarily safe here. I’ve heard about the assassination attempts from Jhagan.” That was Risilan’s general and lead advisor. The War Forgers knew him from their original journey to this planet. “Plus, while her world might not be under attack by the Link now, more attacks will certainly come in the future.”

“Then we’ll jump back to Earth when that happens,” Lori said. “In the meantime, I say we camp out here on this alien world. Offer our services to the queen.”

“I don’t think I want to offer my services to the queen,” Jason said.

“What, take one for the team,” Lori said. “I know you like having sex with her.”

Jason gazed at the lake outside and sighed. “No, we have to go back. I can’t abandon Earth. None of us can.”

“I can,” Sophie said, sweeping inside. She sat down next to Aria. She wore her Cleopatra outfit today, replete with diaphanous white dress, crown, and kohl-painted eyes. A Persian cat leaped into her lap and she began petting it. “When the humans attacked us back there, for me, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m tired of having to help those ungrateful wretches. They can’t let us coexist peacefully with them? Then I say we leave them to the fate they’ve earned. You know, I actually laughed when the alien invaders appeared and started chewing through their ranks. They deserve whatever cruel end awaits them.”

“They still think we’re military property after all these years,” Aria said. “Kind of shows you that the other Mind Refurbs were smart to leave the planet. Maybe Sophie’s right. Maybe we’ve overstayed our welcome. If Queen Risilan has offered us a place here, maybe we should take it.”

Jason didn’t answer. “You’re both right. But a part of me still feels human inside. And I can’t bring myself to abandon humanity. I know that only a few top advisors in the military ordered the strike against our base. I also know that the majority of humankind probably holds no grudge against us. Especially not the Mind Refurbs among them.”

“The President probably signed off on the attack, you know,” Tara said, entering. She wore skimpy shorts and a tight tube top, all the better to reveal her lean belly. She sat cross-legged on the floor. “And he’s a Mind Refurb, at least according to the rumors on the Net.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Jason said. “They’ve wronged us, yes. But they also created us. If only for that, we owe them.”

Tara shook her head. “I agree with Sophie. We don’t owe them a thing. I only came here because I wanted to get away from the aliens. I didn’t want to ask for an alliance. That was all you.”

Cheyanne and Maeran entered, as did Iris and Xin. They stood against the far wall, with arms crossed.

“Having a meeting, and you forgot to invite us?” Iris said in her Middle Eastern accent.

“Not a meeting,” Jason said. “Well, I guess it’s become one. We’re essentially deciding our fate. And humanity’s.”

“I want to help them,” Cheyanne said. “But I don’t know if I can make myself. They couldn’t leave us alone.”

“You’d think no one would want that particular area of the uninhabited zone,” Maeran said.

“It is mineral rich,” Aria said. “Versus most of the rest of the zone, which the termites picked dry during the invasion.”

“But North America is mineral rich, too,” Maeran said. “They have no reason to bother us.”

“If only for the fact they’re afraid of us,” Jason said. “I’m sure they think we have some alien technology that could benefit the rest of humankind, and they feel we’re hoarding it away from them. That general we faced a few years back admitted as much, when he demanded that we send over the entirety of our databases, along with complete mind dumps.”

“Yeah, like we’d ever do that,” Tara said.

Jason turned his chair around so that he was no longer facing the window, and the mountain lake beyond. “I’m going to go back. But I can’t ask any of you to come with me. I know that you don’t want to help the humans. I know that you’re pissed at them for their latest behavior. And you’re right, maybe some of them deserve what they had coming. Those who assaulted us certainly do. But not the rest of humanity. They don’t deserve to die out. I’m going to fight for them. Them, not for the Earth army. For the common man and woman who just want to live and let live.”

Lori sighed. She ran her gaze across the others, who seemed unsure of what to say. And then she spoke. “Of course we have to go, if you do. Even if we don’t want to.”

“Why do we have to?” Sophie said angrily. When she met his eyes, the defiance he saw there only increased. “If he wants to go kill himself, maybe we should let him.”

Utter silence followed after that.

Sophie lowered her gaze, apparently regretting her cutting words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You mean more to me… to us… than anything. All we have is each other, at this point. That’s why I don’t want to go. I’m afraid of losing any of you.” She looked at him, and her eyes seemed to say, “especially you.”

“We have mind backups…” Iris said.

Sophie gave her a sad smile. “If you die, your backup isn’t you. I hope you’ve figured that out by now.”

“I have,” Iris said. “But to the rest of you, it will be me. And that’s a comfort.”

“Okay, Lori is coming with me,” Jason said. “Anyone else? I won’t hold it against you if you stay. In fact, I’d almost prefer that. Because at least I’d know you were safe here.”

“I’m going,” Maeran said.

“As am I,” Xin said. “We love you. We love each other. We don’t abandon one another.”

One by one, the rest of them agreed to come. Except for Sophie.

Jason looked at her. “Stay, Sophie. You don’t have to come with us.”

She kept her gaze on the floor. “Actually I do. For the reasons that the others gave, and for reasons of my own.” She looked up, and when her eyes met his, they were misty with unshed tears. “I’m not going to let you journey into the jaws of death on your own. I’m going to be there, fighting by your side, to the very end of time.” Her lips quivered as the final words left her mouth, and she looked away.

Jason was touched by her words, and unsure of what to say. He simply let the silence drag on around them.

Of all the women, Sophie was always the strongest of us. I just hope she’ll be able to withstand my death, if it comes to that.

He would have to ask his clones if they wanted to stay or return. No doubt they’d have similar discussions with their own teams.

“Risilan is requesting entry once more,” Z said in her sensual voice, breaking Jason out of his thoughts.

Jason straightened. “Let her in.” He glanced at the others. “The rest of you stay.”

Garbed in her intricate red and gold gown, Risilan appeared in the center of the room. She glanced at the other War Forgers uncertainly. “Am I disturbing you?”

“Have a seat,” Jason said, pointing out a free chair.

“No, I’ll keep this quick,” Risilan said. “I will lend you twenty ships.”

10

Jain steered the Devastator, and the Void Warriors with him, into the thick tangle of enemy warships. The Minelayers had returned, along with the Battlestars, and they offered covering fire for the Trees and Teleporters.

He unleashed blobs at the Minelayer in front of him, and fired his lightning weapon at the fighters from the Battlestars. He dodged the energy whip of one of the Trees, and fired several skirmishers that latched onto that particular vessel. He passed by a Teleporter, zig-zagging to avoid having its bombs find their targets inside of him, and then in moments he was moving well away from the vessels, having successfully completed yet another attack run.

He glanced at his rear view camera feed. The Banthar, led by Eric of the Bolt Eaters followed just behind him, and they unleashed their gamma ray and black hole weapons. The former weapons easily disabled the fighters, while the latter were useful in guiding the enemy craft closer to the Banthar ships so that said vessels could utilize the micro machines coating their hulls in profusion. Those termites raked across the enemy hulls, cutting wide, breaching gashes; when Teleporter ships materialized close to them, the Banthar simply redirected some of their micro machine coating to tear into the fresh hulls.

The Mind Refurb vessels of Earth Defense Force I and Task Force 88 came last, and they launched energy cannons, black holes, missiles, and raptors. They targeted the Trees mostly, which were the easiest for their lasers to damage. They trimmed away the roots, which caused multiple Tree vessels to drop out of the fight with their inertialess drives disabled.

After that third pass, the defending fleets regrouped.

“There are too many of them,” Eric said over the voice line. “We’re going to need a different strategy. I’m losing too many ships on each flyby.”

“We all are,” Tanis said over the same line. “But if we don’t keep them occupied, they’ll turn their fire on Earth.”

Jain studied the tactical display. The situation indeed seemed grim. Already, Link ships were turning away from the defending fleet, and heading toward Earth.

He glanced at Sheila on his virtual bridge. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck hacking into their comm protocols?”

She shook her head. “Nope. These guys have their systems locked down solid. Even with the network protocol data you shared with me from the Mimic cloud database, without the necessary access keys, there’s no way I can get inside. It was a nice pipe dream.”

“Pipe dream…” Gavin said. “Ever smoked an opium pipe?”

“Every day,” Sheila said. “Look around you.”

Gavin nodded. “We’re definitely on drugs.”

Jain felt a pain in his back and he realized a Teleporter had appeared directly behind him. He swung around, and began zig-zagging as he unleashed several blobs at the ship. It was rapidly heading away from the defending fleet, which was concentrating its fire on the unit.

“Brave,” Cranston said.

“And lucky,” Jain said. He watched the ship narrowly dodge all the incoming projectiles to move out of firing range. It couldn’t teleport again right away, not before recharging.

“Let’s try the flanking maneuver again,” Tanis said. “Jain, you and your Void Warriors will come at them from the starboard side. Eric, your Banthars will attack from the opposite flank. The rest of us will come in from the front.”

Jain smiled inside, very slightly. To him, it was an honor for the Void Warriors to be considered a separate fighting unit, when mostly they were little different from other Mind Refurb vessels. Well, the Void Warriors did have him at their head, he reminded himself. An alien vessel.

But I’m only one small part of that team. If an effective part.

“I’m detecting a rift opening,” Xander said.

“Where?” Jain glanced at the tactical display.

“Behind us,” Xander said. “Twenty thousand kilometers away.”

Jain swung the Devastator about. Five ships he’d never seen before entered. They looked vaguely like hang gliders, with claws hanging down. He didn’t have a match for the ships in his database.

The Hang Gliders shone brightly, so that soon the signal out punched his sensors, and he read only solid white out there.

“Where did they go?” Jain asked.

“They’re still out there,” Sheila said. “We just can’t detect them, not with all that interference!” Her avatar blinked in and out, threatening to vanish entirely.

Jain felt multiple stings in his chest, and then he was tugged against his volition.

“Xander, tell me what’s going on?” Jain said.

“They’ve latched on to us, I think,” Xander said. “With grapplers.” The robed man was the only one who was still solid there on the bridge, besides Jain himself.

“Well reverse course, and break free!” Jain said.

“Can’t,” his Accomp replied.

The map still showed the position of the fleet, thanks to the positional broadcasts that were getting through; according to that map, Jain was being dragged directly toward Sheila.

“Get out of the way!” he told her.

“I’m trying,” Sheila said.

“Xander, unleash blobs, random spread pattern,” Jain said. “Also, I want termites flooding the hull regions surrounding the grappling hook impact sites. Have the micro machines chew away the chains as quickly as possible.”

“On it,” Xander said.

He was still attempting to accelerate in the reverse direction when suddenly he broke free.

“We hit three of the chains with our blobs,” Xander said. “The rest weren’t strong enough to hold us in place.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display. He’d only just avoided hitting Sheila.

“Are you still blind?” Cranston asked.

“Yes!” Jain replied.

“The rest of us can detect them via our gravity wave add-ons,” Gavin said. “I’m transmitting the positional data your way.”

As an alien vessel, Jain’s Nurturer didn’t have those particular sensor add-ons.

I’m going to have to think about installing them sometime!

The positions of the enemy vessels appeared on his tactical display. He realized several Tree vessels had used the distraction to close with him, and they were just about to unleash their energy whip attacks at him.

He accelerated away, heading toward the closest Hang Glider. He targeted it with his blob weapon, and the intense field of brightness around him reduced slightly. The other Void Warriors managed to take down the remaining ships using a combination of black holes and raptors, and space returned to normal out there.

The rift was still open, he realized.

“The only one they really attacked was Jain, did you notice?” Sheila said. “They didn’t fire their grappling hooks or weapons at the rest of us.”

“Trying to blind us with their hulls counts as an attack in my book.” Gavin said.

Jain was still staring at that rift when more ships entered.

He quickly dove out of the way.

“I’m detecting a compatible connection request,” Xander said. He glanced at Jain. “Should I accept?”

Getting curious, Jain said: “Go ahead.” He was prepared to fire at any second.

“It’s voice only,” Xander said.

The connection light turned green on his HUD, indicating a successful link.

“Uh, hi,” a male voice cracked over the comm. “My name is Jason. I’m a Mind Refurb. I’ve secured an alliance with an alien race known as the Tyrnari. We’re here to help.”

Jain frowned, muting the line. He accelerated his time sense and glanced at Sheila. “Who the hell is this? Jason? The Tyrnari?”

“I have no idea,” Sheila said. “I’m searching my database now, but there’s no mention of a Jason together with a Tyrnari... there are fifty Jason entries on their own, however.”

Jain checked his own Mimic database. There was no mention of a Tyrnari anywhere, though it was possible the Mimics used a different name to describe the alien race in question.

“Wait,” Sheila said.

“Got something?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Sheila said. “There was an incident in the uninhabited zone about fifty years back. A few Mind Refurb machines revolted, according to the log, and refused to return to base.”

“Sounds a little bit like us…” Mark said.

“Anyway, one of the Mind Refurbs involved was named Jason,” Sheila said. “The voice prints on transmissions he sent match up with the voice prints of this Jason. They were part of a once secret project involving combining mechs.”

“Combining mechs?” Medeia asked.

“That’s right,” Sheila said. “They could combine to become a bigger mech known as a Cataphract. Apparently, he and the other Mind Refurbs with him made quite the base for themselves out in the badlands after they revolted. Turns out the military wasn’t too happy about that, and they’ve been trying to terminate their program for the past fifty years.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” Jain said. “Though how one goes from commanding a rogue base of combining mechs in the uninhabited zone, to securing an alliance with an alien race, is another story.” He returned his time sense to normal and unmuted the line. “You’re the Jason from the uninhabited zone? Hunted by the military? Leader of a rogue band of combining mechs?”

“That would be me,” Jason said.

“Anyone hunted by the human military is my friend,” Jain said. “My name is Jain. I was hunted by them, too. The space navy equivalent, anyway.”

“Uh, glad we have something in common,” Jason said.

“How many ships do you have?” Jain said. He glanced at the map and counted fifteen, but wasn’t sure if more were coming. But then the rift closed.

“Twenty ships,” Jason said. “Er, I guess fifteen, now.”

“Those glow bugs were yours?” Medeia said.

“Yes,” Jason said.

“Whoops, we just destroyed them,” Medeia said. “Sorry.”

“Actually, they’re not mine,” Jason said. “They’re Queen Risilan’s. Her advisor, Jhagan, is sitting right beside me, and he’s not impressed.”

“Risilan?” Jain said.

“She rules the Tyrnari,” Jason said. “All you really need to know is she hates the Link.”

“Okay, well, tell this advisor of yours that we destroyed his ships because they attacked us,” Jain said.

“They were only attacking you,” Jason said. “Jhagan tells me he didn’t realize you were with the Mind Refurb vessels at first, at least not until he detected the human-compatible radio waves emanating from your hull. The Mimics were Link races, the last he checked.”

“Yeah well, things have changed recently,” Jain said. “If you really want to help, feel free to dive in whenever you’re ready. I can’t really talk now, seeing as we’re in the middle of a space battle.”

“I see that,” Jason said. “We’ll talk after. Jason out.”

The line went dead.

“Well, that was interesting,” Cranston commented.

“Don’t you hate that when you fire at approaching ships,” Mark said. “And they turn out to be friendly!”

“Not if it saves my life,” Jain said. “Xander, send a transmission to the admiral. Let him know we have some new friends who’ve come on the scene.”

Jain watched as the fifteen Tyrnari ships flew ahead of the main party and attacked the enemy. From the Hang Gliders’ claws launched plasma beams, and strange, bubble-like projectiles that reminded him of his own blobs—they had the same effect upon impact, causing large sections of hulls to disintegrate. The plasma beams inflicted good damage, too.

The Tyrnari vessels also utilized their blinding hulls and grappling hooks to drag enemy ships into one another in spectacular collisions.

Jain rejoined the battle, taking care not to get too close to the newcomers, lest their bright hulls blind him again. The addition of the Tyrnari was enough to tip the battle in their favor, and in short order the defenders won. All that remained of the Link fleet were drifting ships and debris.

“Xander, connect me to this Jason again,” he said. “Also link in Eric of the Void Warriors, and Admirals Tanis and Jacobs. Give me holographic mode, if possible.”

“Jason accepted, holographic mode,” Xander told him.

An instant later a young man who looked barely out of his teens appeared before him.

“Interesting choice of avatar,” Jain said.

Jason glanced down at himself self-consciously. “Oh. Yeah, I never really updated it. This is how I looked when I originally had my mind scanned. I suppose I should at least age myself, but this just feels like the most authentic me.”

Jain hoped the relative age of this one’s avatar didn’t indicate his maturity level. As a Mind Refurb, Jason could be hundreds of years old, after all.

Or he could have been barely out of his teenage years.

He also could have been lying about everything.

“You’ve secured an alliance with an alien race?” Tanis asked over the comm.

Jason glanced up, as if trying to locate the source of the speaker. “Yes. They were once part of the Link, but left because the requirements were too steep. The Tyrnari were destroying their homeworld to keep up with the quota of bioweapons the Link Empire levied on them.”

“Interesting,” Tanis said. “And who are you again?”

“I’m Jason,” the young man replied.

“Look up the Cataphract Project,” Jain told Tanis. “Apparently Jason here was part of a super secretive group of Mind Refurbs installed in combining mechs. They were sent into the uninhabited zone to hunt bioweapons.”

“Ah,” Tanis said. His eyes were slightly defocused. “According to this report, you went rogue. The army has been trying to disable your units for the past fifty years.”

“Disable?” Jason said. “You mean destroy.”

“I’m not sure what to think of that,” Tanis said. “We’re supposed to trust that you won’t go rogue on us again?”

“I went rogue because I refused to become military property,” Jason said. “As long as you guys don’t try to capture me, or install Containment Code, you have nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Eric said. “And I’ve actually heard of you. I have contacts who monitor military communications on Earth now and then, and they’ve told me of a group of badass combining mechs who’ve built a base for themselves under some mountain in the uninhabited zone. It always brought a smile to my face whenever I heard about the latest military snafu that resulted from an attack on your base.”

“Thank you,” Jason said. “That means a lot, coming from a Bolt Eater.”

“You've heard about us.”

“Of course,” Jason said. “Everyone's heard about you.”

But not us, Jain thought with a frown.

“I recognize your avatar,” Jason continued. “You’re Eric. The most famous Bolt Eater of them all!”

Eric grinned widely.

“Try not to go all fanboy on him now,” Sheila commented.

Jain glanced at Tanis. “So?”

The admiral shrugged. “He can join us, but I plan to keep a close eye on him and his ships, at least until he further proves himself to us.”

Jacobs nodded. “We lost the Mimics, only to replace them with these Tyrnari. And the Banthar, of course.”

“This is only a one-time thing, mind you,” Jason said. “The queen agreed to help just this once, to pay me back for the aid I lent her years ago.”

“I don’t plan on forming an official alliance with humanity, either,” Eric said. “Like Jason told you, for me this is a one-time thing as well.”

“But if it works out,” Jain said, “an alliance might probably be in our best interests. Alone, we can’t stand against the Link. But together, our three races have been able to hold them off. At least so far.”

“Sure,” Jason said. “We can talk about a potential alliance when this is all over. Earth is still in danger though, no? Not just from the bioweapons and robots the Link are pouring into the cities… I take it you’re expecting more space-based reinforcements to arrive?”

“The Link has been hitting us fast and hard,” Tanis agreed. “So yes, I suspect this little lull in the fighting won’t last for long.”

Jason was quiet a moment. He seemed to be torn, as if trying to decide whether to reveal something that might potentially be important, or hold it back.

Finally he spoke.

“Eventually, you’ll have to take the battle to one of their homeworlds,” Jason said. “If not all of them. Otherwise, the Link won’t stop attacking.” He raised a hand. “Not that I’m saying the Tyrnari will agree to this. They only came to defend Earth. But it’s something I want you to think about.”

“Even if your ships stayed, along with the Banthar, I don’t think we have the means to attack any of their homeworlds,” Jacobs said.

“It’s the only way you’ll get the Link to leave you alone permanently,” Jason said. “Otherwise they’ll keep returning. It’s happened to the Tyrnari. The Link come, fight them for a few weeks, sometimes months, and then leave. A few years later, once the empire has regenerated the resources they lost, they strike again in another short war. It’s essentially a battle of attrition. The only way to stop them is by striking at the source. Take out the homeworlds of their top members. You have to do more than bloody their noses. You have to chop off their heads. Thanks to Jhagan, Risilan’s advisor, I have the locations of all these homeworlds, by the way.”

“That’s certainly something to consider,” Tanis said. “But right now, our focus is going to have to be on protecting our own planet. I’m hoping that eventually, once we’ve fended off enough of their attacks, the Link will be open to negotiations. Then—”

“They won’t negotiate,” a deep male voice came over the comm.

Jason glanced sidelong, at something off camera. “That’s Jhagan, by the way.”

“They won’t negotiate,” Jhagan said, louder. “At least not until you’ve attacked them where it hurts. I’ve been urging Risilan to strike at the heart of the Link Empire for years, but she’s always ignored me, while our space navy has slowly whittled away. Don’t make the same mistake she did. Strike at the Link while you still can. While you still have a fleet.”

“We have no idea what their defenses will be,” Tanis said. “Nor how many ships they’ll have waiting for us.”

“I have some idea of both,” Jhagan said. “And will share with you what I can. I have a certain world in mind already. A world my people have been scouting for decades.”

“So it sounds like you’re agreeing to help us do more than defend Earth, then?” Tanis said. “In direct contradiction to what Jason just told us.”

Jason raised his hands defensively. “Actually, I said I wasn’t sure if they’d help. But I guess they’re willing. Or some of them are, even if the queen doesn’t approve.”

“He doesn’t speak for me,” Jhagan continued. “Nor does the queen. This fleet is mine, now that I’m outside Tyrnari territory: Risilan gave me full authority to act in her name, as I see fit to protect our homeworld. If you agree to send a strike group to the Link planet in question, of course I will help you, as it is in my homeworld’s best interests.”

Jain had kept a video feed open on one of the view screens on the virtual bridge, and a flash came from it in that moment.

“Xander, what just happened?” Jain asked.

His Accomp was quiet for several seconds. “A rift opened next to the moon. Something just entered. Something big.”

“Let’s see a holographic projection…” Jain said.

A few seconds later a grayish, donut-shaped object appeared, rotating on the bridge in the space between Jain and Jason. Its surface was covered in flat, polygonal faces.

“Oh, shitters,” the voice of Jhagan came over the comm. It seemed filled with a mix of awe and dread.

“What, what’s shitters?” Eric asked.

“I hate these ships,” Jhagan replied.

“Why, what can it do?” Jain pressed. “Xander, are you detecting any obvious weapon turrets on its surface?”

“That’s a negative,” Xander said. “But that doesn’t mean any weapons aren’t currently concealed.”

“What can it do?” Jhagan said. “What? That, my human friends, is a world killer.”

11

“Just a world killer?” Eric said. “Oh, that’s no problem then. Earth has basically been facing world killers for the past hundred years. We’ve handled them before, we’ll handle them again.” He spoke with a lot more confidence than he felt, of course.

“Go ahead, try to attack,” Jhagan said. “It won’t fire back. But nor will any of your weapons do any damage. It is equipped with a force field… most attacks will only bolster that shield, as it absorbs energy and spreads the excess across its inner surface area.”

Eric couldn’t actually see the alien speaker. He was participating in this conversation voice only. Though he was curious what form the so-called Tyrnari had taken. Human maybe? Or perhaps this Jhagan was staying off camera entirely, keeping his avatar hidden from view even from the initiators of the holographic conversation.

He sat back on the deck of his wooden ship, and glanced at the other Bolt Eaters who lounged there with him. In front of them, the donut-shaped vessel rotated a few meters above the deck.

“Doesn’t really look like a Death Star, does it?” Frogger commented.

“Death what?” Bambi asked.

“Never mind,” Eric told her. “Before your time.”

“I’m sending in a flotilla on an attack run,” Tanis said. “Jason, or Jhagan, I could use a couple of your Tyrnari vessels for backup. Eric, some Banthars would be nice, too.”

“I’ll send the Tyrnari,” Jhagan responded. “But as I already told you, it won’t help.”

“I’d like to try, in any case,” Tanis said.

“Very well,” Jhagan said.

Eric glanced at his tactical map and saw some of the Earth defender ships pulling away. A moment later some Tyrnari vessels joined them. Eric instructed some of his Banthar vessels to make an attack run with them.

The Earth ships launched black holes, energy cannons, and nuclear bombs, the Tyrnari unleashed their plasma beams and black holes, and the Banthar fired gamma rays and unleashed strings of micro machines.

Eric had the feed from his external cameras piped in directly in front of him, so that he wouldn’t have to look past the translucent ocean beside him, and saw a bright, curved shape flashing into existence around the world killer as the weapons neared the donut-shaped ship. The nuclear bombs detonated as they impacted that field, but even their blast waves were absorbed, and nothing got close to touching the world killer within.

“Jhagan was right,” Tanis sent.

“Yes,” Jhagan said. “Weapons do nothing, except charge that shield.”

“We have a few teleporters in our midst,” Jain said. “Maybe we can teleport past it?”

“That force field is autogating,” Jhagan said. “You can try teleporting inside, but it won’t work. The ships are too big.”

A moment later, Jain said: “I can confirm. One of my Void Warriors just attempted to teleport. He wasn’t able to open the endpoint.”

“There is a way inside,” Eric said suddenly.

“We’re listening,” Tanis sent.

“How do you know?” Dickson asked him from where he was seated on the deck.

“My cloud database,” Eric said. “The Banthar have encountered ships like these. Teleportation does indeed work, but the objects to be teleported have to be a lot smaller. If we can modify our teleporters to send objects, like the Farseeker vessels do, then we can send in a team.”

There was a pause, then:

“My Void Warriors tell me they have some ideas on how to do this,” Jain said over the comm. “But they have a condition. They want to be the ones to go.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Eric said. “The Bolt Eaters are going in.”

“No, I disagree,” Jason said. “This is a job for the War Forgers.”

Brontosaur suddenly chuckled beside Eric. “I can’t believe this. We’re arguing among ourselves about who gets to be the first to die.”

“I’ve never heard of any penetration teams defeating this sort of vessel,” Jhagan commented. “Then again, I don’t really have much intel on these ships. So far, the Link has never sent world killers to the Tyrnari homeworld. But that’s only because they want to preserve the precious bioweapons that still roam our planet in hordes.”

“The Banthar were known as hoarders, even among the Link, and they have the blueprints,” Eric said. “I have a full map of the interior. If we can teleport inside there, I have an idea of how we can deactivate the shield. The mission certainly won’t be easy, but it is doable. Because of my intimate knowledge, I’m the obvious pick for the mission, of course.”

“And we’re going with you,” Slate said from the Bug Killer.

“I’m not so sure it’s the greatest idea for everyone to go along,” Eric said. “The insides of the ship are relatively cramped… our humanoid androids will fit, but not mechs. Even Cicadas are a tad too big for where we’ll be operating.”

“Damn,” Dunnigan sent. “I was looking forward to trying the new alien mechs in our arsenal.”

“I guess that rules out building-sized mechs like my Vulture,” Jason sent.

“That’s right,” Eric said.

“The Void Warriors are going,” Jain broadcast. “There’s no question. We have humanoid models aboard. Plus, we’re the ones who are going to teleport the rest of you. Assuming we can get our teleportation devices modded in time…”

“Time,” Eric said. “Something we don’t have very much of.” He glanced at his tactical display. The world killer was on a direct course to Earth. Its trajectory would take it through the defending fleet, and when it reached Earth, it would arrive somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean.

“You’re the one with knowledge of how these things work…” Jain said. “Tell us just how much time we have.”

“Well, it needs a continent underneath it, so it’s going to have to change course in orbit until its above land, probably North America,” Eric said. “Once it’s in place, the pulse generator located at the center of the ship—where the donut hole resides—will begin firing concentric pulses of energy into the Earth’s crust. These pulses are designed to penetrate into the mantle, and into the magma layers beneath. The shield will continue to protect it from external attacks the whole time. Over the course of eight hours, those pulses will heat the magma into the tens of thousands of Kelvins range, causing the continents to drift free—think destructive earthquakes—and volcanoes to erupt across the planet. It’s going to be messy.

“There’s a chance humanity could survive. But most likely, Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter from all that volcanic ash spewed into the air. Plus, most of the cities will be pulverized from the earthquakes. That, combined with the damage the Link invaders have already caused to the different cities, is essentially the death knell of humanity. If some do survive, it’ll still take hundreds of years to recover, if not thousands. Link hunter killer squads will no doubt roam the ruins, seeking out the survivors while terraforming robots convert the planet into a bioweapons factory.”

His grim pronouncement was met with silence. Then:

“So we have eight hours, you’re saying?” Jain asked.

“The earthquakes will begin at the six hour mark,” Eric replied. “And we have an hour before that until it reaches Earth and moves into position above the surface. So that gives us a total of seven hours.”

“That’s not much time at all,” Jain said. “Though I’ve got my team operating at their maximum possible time sense to get the tweaks to the teleportation device done.”

“I hope they get something done within the hour,” Eric said.

“How many of you plan to join us?” Jain asked.

Eric glanced at the Bolt Eaters on the deck with him. “If the seven of us go, along with your six Void Warriors, that makes thirteen of us. That’s about the perfect size for the boarding party.”

“What about us?” Slate said from the Bug Killer.

“Sorry, bro,” Eric said. “You’ll just have to hold the fort from orbit. I’m sure we’ll face more attacks from other Link vessels while we’re in there, especially once they realize what we’re doing. It’s up to you guys to watch our backs.”

“Yeah, except Slate is doing all the driving,” Eagleeye complained. “And we’re just sitting back in the passenger seat, along for the ride.”

“Then get him to divvy up some of his processing tasks your way,” Eric said.

“Oh, fun times,” Eagleeye said. “He’ll probably grant me access to something lame like the gamma ray recharge subroutines.”

“You know it!” Slate said. “You wanna be my bitch, I’ll make you my bitch!”

“All right, on that note…” Eric said. “Jain, let me know as soon as you have the modifications to the teleportation device ready. Assuming, of course, the rest of the fleet agrees to what we’ve discussed.” Tanis and Jacobs had been keeping uncharacteristically quiet.

“We agree,” Tanis said. “Someone has to destroy that ship. It may as well be the Heroes of Earth. But there’s something troubling we’ve detected on the planet.”

“What now?” Eric asked.

“Take a look at New Hampshire,” Tanis replied.

“First colony to declare independence from Britain in 1776,” Sarge said. He grinned sheepishly when Eric glanced at him. “Gotta love the instant recall provided by a permanent connection to the cloud.”

“Dee, what do we have down there?” Eric questioned his Accomp.

“I’m detecting elevated radiation transmissions from the area,” Dee said. “I’m zooming in on the area with the cameras.”

Eric accessed the same camera feed, and he could see the cylindrical units working together with drone swarms to lay the foundations of some sort of building. It reminded him vaguely of the Pentagon with its five sides and empty central area.

“I recognize this,” Eric said.

“What is it?” Tanis asked.

“According to the Banthar archives, it’s a backup world killer,” Eric said. “The device works similar to the one coming down from orbit, in that once it’s complete, it’ll emit a beam directly into the mantle and heat the subsurface. So even if we succeed in eliminating the threat from orbit, if this device goes off, it will still trigger earthquakes planet-wide, tearing the continent apart, and all the cities with it.”

“That’s typical of the Link,” Jhagan sent. “They always have a backup plan.”

“Well, we’ll just have to take out that base, too,” Jason transmitted. “Looks like you have a use for my team and its mechs after all.”

* * *

An hour later, Eric was inside a shuttle aboard the pyramid-shaped ship known as the Devastator. He had switched to his android, and was interacting with the universe from its viewpoint. With him sat other androids containing the AI cores of Bambi, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Dickson, Frogger, and Sarge. They wore gray digital camos, with helmets, and plasma rifles strapped to their shoulders. On their chests they carried vests harboring energy and frag grenades. It wasn’t the greatest load out, but it was all they could manage in such short order. Resistance was expected aboard; Eric just wasn’t sure what kind of resistance.

Another android sat beside Eric, this one the spitting image of Jain’s avatar. Its eyes were currently closed.

“So, did the transfer work?” Eric asked.

Jain opened his eyes and paused a moment to examine his hands. “Yes. My consciousness feels so… limited, now.”

“Your Accomp is in control of the vessel?” Eric asked.

“The original is, yes,” Jain said. “I retain a copy in my local AI core. When I return my consciousness to the ship, the original will overwrite the copy I keep with me, ensuring that duplicate Accomps aren’t created.”

“I might have to try that transference method with Banthar Prime sometime,” Eric said. “Though I’m not sure Dee would be too happy about me strapping her with the task of managing a planet without me.”

“I wouldn’t mind terribly,” Dee said.

“Speaking of Banthar Prime, are you being drawn away often?” Jain asked.

Eric shook his head. “I’ve had to check in on a few things, but nothing big enough to warrant pausing external reality for more than a few seconds at a time.”

The shuttle shook as it launched. In five minutes, they were docking with the Void Warrior vessel known as the Forebode.

When they landed, the bay doors opened. There was no need to pressurize the hangar bay: they let the cold void of space seep inside. They were all androids, after all.

Artificial gravity glued their feet to the deck as they exited the shuttle. In front of him, ice from condensation formed on Bambi’s ears.

“Look, icicle earrings!” she joked. She modeled them for Crusher.

“Nice,” Crusher said. “But how come I didn’t grow any?”

“I’m special,” Bambi said.

“You are indeed,” Brontosaurus said with an amused grin.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, big guy,” Bambi told him.

“Who me, smirk?” Brontosaurus said, his grin deepening. “Never!”

They entered the special shuttle that the Void Warriors had prepared. Inside, the other five Void Warriors were waiting. They were equipped with similar load outs as the Bolt Eaters, except their weapons were laser rifles, and they had only energy grenades.

“Well, here we are, the Bolt Eaters and Void Warriors,” Frogger said. “Together again as you’ve never seen them before!”

“I don’t get the joke,” Crusher said.

“It’s a play on old movie trailers,” Frogger said. “Never mind.”

“They do that a lot,” Crusher told the Void Warrior beside her, a woman named Medeia. Eric knew her name because of the label on his HUD. “Archaic cultural references. You get used to it.”

Medeia simply nodded.

“You’ve all transferred your consciousnesses into androids?” Eric asked the Void Warriors.

“We have,” the one named Mark said. “You told us our comm signals wouldn’t pass through the energy shield of the world killer?”

“They won’t,” Eric said. “I was just checking.”

“Yeah, about that,” Medeia said. “How come your signals will? You’re controlling your android remotely, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Eric said. “But mine are based on gamma rays. They have much higher penetrative abilities.”

“I’m sure we could have jury-rigged something,” Medeia said.

“I’m sure we could have,” Eric agreed. “But we didn’t have time.”

“What if you’re wrong, and your rays don’t penetrate?” the Void Warrior named Sheila asked.

“Then I’m not going with you,” Eric told her.

Jain buckled himself in across from Sheila. She gave him a glance that seemed somehow significant before she looked away.

There’s something going on between those two.

Not that it was any of Eric’s business. He’d taken along his own two girlfriends, after all.

He hoped he didn’t regret that.

Not that they would have ever let him leave them behind.

The ramp closed and the shuttle shook as it launched. The artificial gravity faded away when the ship exited the hangar bay. Eric had permission to access the external camera feeds, and he did so, which allowed him to watch as other Mind Refurb ships nearby closed to escort them toward the world killer.

“Here we go,” Eric said.

12

Eric watched as the shuttle approached the outer extents of the world killer. The invisible energy shield was indicated on the video feed, displayed as a red ellipsoid around the donut ship, as recorded by their sensors during the previous attack.

Eric remembered the conversation he had with Jain before the mission.

“We’re going to have to decide on who’s in command,” Eric told the former SEAL.

“That would be a good idea,” Jain agreed. “Since it’s my shuttle, and my teleportation device, I’m in charge of course.”

“Not so fast,” Eric said. “Sure, I’ll let you command the shuttle, since it is yours, after all. But once we land on the world killer’s hull, I’m taking over. Invading alien warships is like second nature to myself and my Bolt Eaters. We’ve done it so many times, we could do it in our sleep.”

“I’ve boarded a few ships myself,” Jain said. “Plus, I was the commander of a Navy SEAL team. I’ve been leading men into battle for my entire adult life. I’m more than qualified to do this.”

“Yes,” Eric said. “But you’re a bit rusty. You’ve been leading starships. Which is completely different from small unit tactics.”

“Not so different,” Jain said.

Eric shook his head. “I’ve had the same training as you, thanks to my Mind Refurb nature.”

“Wait, you say I’m rusty?” Jain said. “As far as I can tell, the last battle you had was over eighty years ago.”

“But a Mind Refurb never forgets,” Eric said. “Eighty years ago might as well be yesterday. Besides, that was the last battle recorded by humans and Mind Refurbs. I’ve had more than my fair share of battles on Banthar Prime since then. The insurrections, the assassination attempts… the Banthar have kept my combat skills sharp, don’t you worry.”

Jain opened his mouth, but Eric raised a hand to forestall him.

“Look,” Eric said. “Let’s do it this way. We’ll go by who has the bigger mind.”

Jain frowned.

“And since that’s me—my mind is the size of a planet—I’m in command by default once we touch the alien hull,” Eric said. “But if anything happens to me, or my connection severs, then you take charge.”

Jain stared at him for several moments. For a second, Eric thought the former SEAL would disagree yet again. But then Jain shrugged.

Eric took it as tacit agreement, and smiled fleetingly at that. He wondered if Jain would acquiesce to his commands so easily during the actual mission. Probably not. But he was ready to spar with him if needed. And if they really came to blows, well, then Eric was ready to give the order for the two teams to go their separate ways. He only really needed the Void Warriors to get him inside. Once he was aboard, the Void Warriors could do whatever the hell they wanted as far as Eric was concerned. His Bolt Eaters were enough to handle the job.

“You know,” Brontosaurus said, bringing Eric out of his thoughts. “If it was so easy for you guys to create teleportation devices, maybe we should have had you create some teleport bombs for the rest of the fleet to use.”

“Not so easy,” Jain said. “Cranston here had to open up his drive and scavenge it for the parts he needed. That drive is offline at the moment… as soon we return to the Forebode, he’s going to have to reinsert those parts to get his main teleporter working again.”

“Not only that,” Cranston said. “But the range is extremely limited. It can only teleport us a maximum distance of a hundred meters or so.”

“Too bad,” Brontosaurus said.

As the shuttle came closer to the world killer, Jain said: “Fire light laser. Let’s confirm the positioning of that field.”

The invisible laser released, and the energy field activated, becoming a bright yellow curve that precisely overlapped the virtual ellipsoid surrounding the target ship on the feed.

“Okay, so it matches.” Jain glanced at Eric. “If that field is thicker than a few meters, we won’t make it though.”

“It’s not,” Eric said with more confidence than he felt. It was possible the Link had changed the specs on the energy shield since the last time the Banthar database had updated.

The shuttle continued to approach the energy shield. Abruptly the world killer veered toward them, as if intending to ram them with the shield—which would probably incinerate them.

Jain glanced at the Void Warrior named Cranston. “Teleport!”

Despite his reassurances to the contrary, Eric was still a little worried that his signal to the android would get cut off once they passed the shield. He supposed now was the moment of truth.

On the view screen, the ship jumped toward them.

“We’re through!” Cranston said.

Eric was still in control of his android, much to his relief.

“Decelerate!” Jain said.

The enemy hull was hurtling toward them. Fast.

They hit, hard. Eric was jarred in his seat. On the camera, he watched as the hull receded—the shuttle had bounced away.

“Fire grappling hooks!” Jain said.

Lines streamed out from the shuttle and slammed into the craft. The shuttle began to reel itself in. But then the target swerved toward them again.

“Brace yourselves…” Jain said.

Once more Eric was jolted as the vessel impacted.

The shuttle bounced again, but the grappling hooks retracted rapidly, and in seconds the craft slammed into the hull for a final time.

“We’re secure,” Jain said.

“By the way, we’ve lost all external communications with the fleet,” Frogger said. “As predicted. Looks like Scorpion is still in control of his android, though.”

“I am,” Eric said. “Electrify exteriors.” He touched a button on the bracelet he wore. He felt a subtle jolt as current began to flow across the surface of his skin. That current would zap any enemy micro machines that attempted to latch onto his body. It did drain his power cell, however, and while that cell was auto regenerating, if too many micro machines attacked at once, the current layer would fail, and he’d be vulnerable.

“Lower the ramp,” Eric ordered.

Cranston glanced at Jain for confirmation, and the Mind Refurb nodded.

The ramp went down, opening out into empty space. As usual, there was no explosive decompression, as the inner cabin hadn’t been pressurized in the first place. All this time, though their lips had been moving when they spoke, no actual sounds had come. Instead, their voices were transmitted over the comm band via a communications sublayer inserted into the subroutine ordinarily responsible for speech processing. Because that man-in-the-middle subroutine interfaced seamlessly with the speech processor, their communications were synced perfectly to their lip movements.

As the ramp continued to lower, Eric began to see crayfish-sized micro machines crawling across the hull all around that ramp; when it touched down, flashes appeared across the surface as the micro machines were zapped by a similar protective current that enveloped the shuttle.

“There’s a lot of them,” Brontosaurus said. “How long will the shuttle’s power cells hold up?”

“About ten minutes,” Jain said. “Should be more than enough time for us to vacate.”

“We’re going to have to skirt them,” Frogger said.

“I’ll go first,” Medeia said, securing the cabin’s lifeline around her waist.

“Wait—” Mark tried.

But she was already pushing off from her seat. There was no artificial gravity out here, so she floated easily through the open ramp and out the shuttle. She floated above the swarming micro machines, and reached the extents of the lifeline—the cord tightened.

The hull was coated in a series of small vents that extended for as far as the eye could see. They were like miniature versions of the gooseneck vents one might find on the top of a building.

Medeia slid the rifle down from her shoulder, reached down, hooked the strap over the tip of one of those small gooseneck vents, and used it to pull herself down to the alien hull.

When her feet touched, she activated the magnetic mounts at the bottom of her boots and latched onto the surface. There were a few sparks at her feet as micro machines attempted to climb onto her. A large swarm had broken away from the group surrounding the shuttle; she untied the lifeline from her waist, letting it float behind her, and quickly moved away, leading the micro machines. She pointed her laser rifle at the things and released several quick bursts.

“Well, at least they’re vulnerable to our weapons,” Medeia sent over the comm. “But killing them with single laser shots is terribly inefficient. I’ll keep circling the shuttle until the rest of you get out here. I’ll try to keep them occupied.”

“Kill them with an energy grenade?” Mark asked as he retracted the lifeline.

“They’re a bit close for that,” Medeia said.

The Void Warriors and Bolt Eaters evacuated the shuttle the same way as Medeia, by tying the lifeline around their waists, leaping out the ramp, and then looping their rifle straps onto the surface features to pull themselves down before latching on. Always a few micro machines broke away from the shuttle to pursue each of them. The team members mustered near Medeia’s latest position; the micro machines always joined up with those that followed her, so that the secondary swarm was growing fairly big.

When they were all out, the shuttle left the hull before the micro machine attacks drained its power cell entirely. The craft would probably have to continually adjust its trajectory to compensate for any sudden directional changes the world killer employed to take the vessel out.

“This way!” Eric said. He moved across the metal hull at a jog. Well, as much of a jog as he could manage, given all the little hooks and vents. The magnetic mounts adjusted their intensity in realtime to match his gait, allowing him to run almost as he would under real gravity. He tripped at one point, and had to release his magnetic hold entirely so that he wouldn’t slam into the surface. He realigned his feet beneath him in a blur and reactivated the mounts before he floated away.

The ship hadn’t seemed all that big during the approach, but now that he was navigating across the surface, the utter immensity of it struck him. The hull stretched to the horizon on all sides. Yes, it was big. Once they got inside, the teams had a long way to the target. He hoped they could make it to their goal within the seven hour time limit. It all boiled down to how much resistance they faced.

When the teams had put some distance between themselves and the micro machine swarms behind them, Eric called a halt.

Teams. Have to start thinking of them as a single team. Not teams. We’re all on the same side here.

“This is as good a spot as any to cut inside,” Eric said. “Cutters, forward!”

Brontosaurus and Crusher joined him, and slammed the tips of their plasma rifles into the hull. They switched the weapons into cutting mode, and began releasing powerful plasma bursts into the hull in rapid succession. They slowly rotated the weapons as they worked, carving a circular pattern into the hull.

“The rest of you, defensive positions,” Eric said.

The team took up positions three hundred and sixty degree around the two cutters. Eric gazed through his scope and scanned the distant hull, looking for signs of any incoming targets.

He thought of the task ahead. It wasn’t going to be easy.

Tanis had offered to deliver a specially crafted nuke to help speed up the process, but Eric had told him an energy grenade would do the job just as well.

In fact a grenade was preferable. A detonation above the hull would cause some damage to the vessel’s armor, true, but not enough to stop the world killer. One might think it would be a simple matter to drill a hole into the hull and then toss the nuke inside to cause even greater damage, but the hull was designed to vent excess energy generated aboard. The nuke would incinerate the metal in the immediate vicinity, true, forming an empty sphere roughly five hundred meters in diameter, but that was nothing against the sheer size of the vessel.

No, if they wanted to use a nuke, they’d have to drag the payload through the labyrinth of corridors and compartments all the way to their target, deep inside the vessel. And they’d have to make their way back to the surface before detonating it, unless they wanted to die in the process. At least with a grenade, they could detonate it the moment they reached their targets, and still escape with their lives. In theory.

Besides, dragging a nuke would use up arms that would be better served pointing rifles at the enemy.

It wasn’t long before Eric spotted a swarm of micro machines on the hull ahead. He unleashed his plasma rifle in quick bursts, taking down large swaths of them with each strike.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s pick up the pace a little bit, kay?”

“Doing what we can,” Brontosaurus said.

Something big appeared among the micro machines. It was a tentacled, squishy thing. All black. He could barely see it, so he switched to LIDAR.

It extended its tentacles in front of its body, and used them to pull its body rapidly across the hull. In that manner, it broke away from the micro machines and crawled toward the team.

Eric tracked it with his plasma rifle and fired. The impact caused a pleasant explosion, and the remains of the creature floated away into space.

Two more came and he fired at them, too. When he took them down, he scanned his scope to the left and right, and realized similar creatures were attacking the group on all sides, and the team members were struggling to keep up with the attacks.

“Some kind of space-adapted bioweapons,” Bambi said.

“Bronto…” Eric said.

By then Brontosaurus and Crusher were lying flat on the hull, holding their rifles into the hole they’d carved with their weapons.

“Almost there,” Brontosaurus said.

As some of the bioweapon blobs got close, they began reaching behind them with their long tentacles, and launched heavy globs of micro machines at the party. The creatures riddled their hard android bodies like rocks; sparks flashed across their bodies as the electrified hulls repelled the tiny robots, but it wasn’t necessary, as the micro machines were too damaged to do anything after impacts like that.

Eric continued firing at the dense mass of bioweapons, exploding them as fast as he was able. He glanced around him, and saw that the creatures were closing in on all sides, forming a thick wall.

His weapon clicked. Overheated. “Damn it.”

Tentacles flailed toward him, attempting to wrap around his body. He dodged them, and activated the bayonet extension—the blade flicked forth, and when the next tentacle came at him, he dodged it and sliced it right off.

“Through!” Brontosaurus said.

“Go, go, go!” Eric said.

There hadn’t been an explosive decompression. That meant there was no atmosphere inside. Not that it mattered.

Behind him, the boarding party piled into the hole. Eric glanced at his overhead map; the blue dots representing his team members left the hull one by one as they pulled themselves inside.

Bayonet moving in a defensive blur, Eric stood his ground, waiting until all those dots had vacated the hull; when everyone was inside, he turned around and dove into the opening.

He gripped the inner walls and pulled himself deeper. He had difficultly gripping the flat surface with his rifle hand, courtesy of the weapon he held,

He neared the bottom, which opened out into a corridor lit with a dark blue light. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of that opening, but before he could pull himself through, a tentacle wrapped around his leg.

He was yanked upward.

Eric spun around, swinging his rifle upward, and aimed it between his feet. He fired at the tentacle, and the plasma beam severed the appendage. Black blood sprayed the walls, and his face.

“Shit!”

More tentacles reached down from the ceiling.

He fired frantically, spraying his face with that blood. With his feet, he found purchase, and kicked off, plunging downward.

He passed through the opening into the dark blue corridor and artificial gravity took hold. His head slammed into the deck, followed by the rest of his body. The impact would have probably broken his neck if he were human.

Tentacles burst from the opening above him, and he rolled out of the way.

CLANG.

“Hey, hun,” Crusher said.

A powerful hand reached down, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him to his feet. Crusher.

She aimed her rifle past his head and fired. Black blood sprayed the back of his head, and her face.

She pulled him away from the opening, and then he turned around.

The tentacles were shoved through the hole in the overhead behind them, and squirmed about as they felt at the air and bulkheads around them.

But they couldn’t reach any of the boarding party members, who had moved further down the hallway on either side. The team was split roughly in half on either side of the appendages.

He glanced at Crusher. “Must be nice to have a weapon that hasn’t overheated.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been firing it in controlled bursts. Unlike you. You panicked, dear.”

He smiled grimly. “No. I didn’t. Every one of my shots hit home. I did some killing, baby girl.”

“Okay, baby boy,” she said.

Frogger prodded those tentacles from the other side of the opening, and the appendages all flicked his way. He giggled.

“Don’t play with fire…” Sarge said.

Eric accessed the blueprints of the vessel and overlaid them with his overhead map. “Okay, you guys are going to have to join us on this side,” he told Frogger. “We’re going this way.” He gestured behind himself with his thumb.

“Any airlocks along the way?” Dickson asked.

“Nope,” Eric said. “Nor breach seals. There’s no atmosphere throughout, so that will make things a little easier on our end. And any bioweapons we meet will have to be void tolerant, like these things.”

Frogger and the others trapped on the other side fired their laser and plasma weapons, cutting away most of the tentacles. Then they raced past underneath.

A moment later, fresh tentacles descended and felt along the bulkheads and empty air anew. Micro machines began to drop inside; they traveled menacingly toward the group.

“Let’s go,” Eric said, rifle in hand.

And so they proceeded deeper into the ship, their way lit by the dim blue glow that emanated from those bulkheads.

13

Jason stood on the edge of the plank and stared at the half dome of the Earth that filled the stars below.

“This sucks,” Lori said. “I hate heights.”

“It has to be done,” Jason said.

His feet were weighed down with booster rockets the humans had sent his way, which helped keep him attached to the surface of the plank. With a sigh, he leaped.

The booster rockets took over, and the ship quickly moved away above him as he decelerated. He would have felt dizzy if he were human, and perhaps the G forces would have even knocked him unconscious, but with his mind embedded in the AI core of a Vulture mech, he experienced only a sense of detached worry.

On the overhead map, he saw the dots of the War Forgers descend as they exited the Tyrnari vessel the same way he did. The clones followed after them, John and his War Forger 2s, Jones and his War Forger 3s, Jerry and the 5s, Julian and the 6s.

The heat shield deployed as Jason hit the Kármán line. The shield was essentially a series of reflective balloons that inflated underneath him. Because of the angle the booster rockets were taking him in on, he bounced slightly when he hit that line.

“This is actually kind of fun,” Sophie said. “It reminds me of surfing.”

“Yeah, that’s all you used to do all day, right?” Tara said. “Posing on your surfboard for your social media followers, while daddy paid the bills.”

“Actually, I was quite the influencer in my day,” Sophie said. “And made most of my own income from sponsorships.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Tara said. “That you lived a fake life for cash?”

“It wasn’t fake…” Sophie said. “I always streamed what I happened to be doing at the moment. In fact… I’m streaming this jump right now, actually.”

“You would,” Tara said.

“Yes,” Sophie said. “I have a hundred million viewers.”

“Nice,” Tara said. “I bet your realtime comment feed is full of sexist comments like ‘show us your tits bitch!’”

“Actually, they’re surprisingly polite,” Sophie said. “I’m a machine. I look like a torso slammed onto the thorax of a spider. I don’t have any tits to show them.”

“Yeah, but I just tapped into your live stream,” Tara said. “You’re broadcasting your avatar in the lower left corner, cheater. So you look human to them. And there are a ton of insulting comments in there, if you pay attention.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “I’ve got my Accomp filtering them out. Only positive comments for me!”

“That’s a skewed view of the world!” Tara said.

“Can we get some quiet on the comm?” Jason said as the flames of reentry subsided. Silence ensued. “Thanks. Oh, and Sophie?”

“Yes?” she said, her voice thickly sweet.

“Stop live streaming,” Jason said. “Last thing we need is the enemy logging onto your stream and using it to pinpoint our positions.”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s stopped.”

The booster rockets steered the team over New Hampshire.

“I’m detecting anti-aircraft fire of some sort,” Z said. For once her voice was dead serious.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Jason said.

He had no control over the booster rockets, but they began to issue alternative thrusts that caused him to zig-zag.

Plasma beams streamed past on either side of him, barely missing him.

On the overhead map, the other War Forgers and their clones zig-zagged as well, as the sky lit up with beams around them.

As he came within two kilometers of the target, the booster rockets fired an abrupt downward burst and Jason dove toward the forest below. He crashed through the branches in a din of cracking wood, and hit the ground hard. Soil sprayed around him as he carved a long blast trail into the dirt. The screech of rocks and branches grinding against his hull rang in his simulated hearing.

He came to a halt.

Silence ensued.

Jason pulled himself to his feet, servomotors complaining loudly. The trees were tall, but he was taller: when he stood at his full height, his head rose just above the treetops, allowing him to peer out across the broad forest around him. He felt a little like a man buried in sand up to his neck. Well, if sand were green.

He glanced at his overhead map. “We’re two klicks out from the target.”

“That’s as close as we can approach from above the treetops,” Z said. “Any closer, and the risk of destruction climbs past seventy percent. Already our risk was in the low thirties, even at this range.”

He watched as the blue dots representing the other team members landed in the forest around him.

“We’ve landed,” Jason sent Admiral Tanis. He had a direct line with the admiral in orbit, thanks to the geosynchronous satellites overhead.

“I can see that,” Tanis replied. “The aliens have cleared the area around their construction site, cutting away the forest. No doubt to prevent any surprise ground attacks. You’re going to be under heavy artillery fire when you reach the edge of the forest. I have air support standing by. And we have our own artillery units ready to fire to the north of your position. Just give the word.”

“I thought the bombers already tried a few runs, but couldn’t get through the shield,” Jason said.

“Yes,” Tanis said. “Which is why we’re relying on you to lower the force field.”

“We’ll get it done.” Somehow. Jason switched comm bands to address the others: “War Forgers, muster on my position.”

It took the War Forgers and their clones twenty minutes to reach him from their scattered locations across the forest.

“John, Jones, lead your clones toward the target from the northwest,” Jason said when everyone had arrived. He illustrated the route on the shared map via a dashed line. “Jerry, Julian, I want yours to come in from the southwest. I’ll head due east with my group… I want us all to reach the edge of the forest at the same time.”

“I’m looking forward to fucking shit up,” Tara said. She must have swept her sword outward then, because three trees collapsed beside her.

“So crude,” Iris said.

“Never claimed to be classy,” Tara told the Middle Eastern Mind Refurb.

“War Forger clones, spread out!” Jason said.

The designated groups stepped into the forest and followed the routes he had drawn on the overhead map, with John and Jones leading their clones in a looping pattern that would bring them in from the northwest of the construction site, while Jerry and Julian headed away to the southwest to come in from the opposite direction.

Jason meanwhile led the original War Forgers directly west into the forest with him. He crouched, ducking his head beneath the treetops. The others who also poked above the trees did the same. Sophie and Iris didn’t have to bother, as their mechs were already below the treetops thanks to their more insectile natures.

Maeran’s three orbiting drones occasionally crashed into surrounding branches, and their powerful rotors ripped the wood straight away.

Jason glanced at Xin and Aria, who as usual stayed together. They were involved in a private conversation according to the channel stats on his HUD, but otherwise he wouldn’t have known it from the way they kept an eye on the forest around them. Those two had turned against him once, a long time ago, but that was because he’d made an error in judgment: he’d wanted to ally with an alien race against humanity. He thought if he made that same decision today, and joined the aliens, they probably wouldn’t have balked. Not after what humanity had done to them over the years.

He remembered the conversation he had had with the team and their clones in VR earlier to discuss the mission.

“Look, if any of you want to stay behind, I’ll understand,” Jason had said. “Humanity has treated us mostly bad, despite everything we’ve done for them. If you want to turn your back on them now, I won’t fault you for it.”

Aria straightened as if affronted. “We’re not here for humanity. We’re here for you.” Her voice caught as she said the latter words.

Jason stared at her, not sure what to say, and worried his own voice would break if he opened his mouth.

“To hell with humanity,” Xin agreed. “We’re all here for you. We fight, and perhaps die, only because of you. Remember that.”

“None of you are going to die today,” Jason said. I swear it.

If anyone would die today, it was going to be him.

“If this is your idea of a pep talk, or a rousing speech before battle, you’re not very good at it,” John said.

Jason smiled. “No. I was never really good at giving speeches. Especially before a fight. But I want you all to know, I won’t forget this. Nor will humanity. Record everything. Don’t stream, just record. And when this is done, we’ll broadcast it to all the streaming sites nationwide. What you do here today will never be forgotten. The humans will finally recognize us for the heroes we are.”

“I don’t want to be recognized as a hero,” Cheyanne said. “I just want to be left alone.”

“We all do,” Jason agreed. “And this is the way.”

“I hope you’re right,” Tara said. “I hope we’re not dying for nothing.”

“No one is dying today,” he repeated.

Those latter words echoed through his mind as the War Forgers made their way through the forest. He wasn’t sure he could keep that promise, especially if he ended up sacrificing himself in the coming battle.

Though the large trees hid the War Forgers from view, the din of their passage was obvious. Breaking branches. Clanging limbs. Thudding feet. When mechs as tall as apartment buildings made their way through a forest, their passage would be noticed regardless of whether they were seen or not. The rumble produced by their passage alone was probably felt by animals for kilometers away.

“We should combine,” Lori said impatiently over the comm. “We’d move so much faster through these trees.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Cheyanne said. “We combine, we’ll stick out from these trees, make an easy target. Don’t you remember the anti-aircraft fire?”

“Yeah, good point,” Lori said. She paused. “Did they try nukes yet?”

“Huh?” Tara said.

“Nukes,” Lori said. “Did the defenders of Earth try nukes against the shield?”

“No, obviously,” Tara told her. “If they tried nukes, this forest wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lori said. “Good point. But why not? They should have tried nukes.”

“Weren’t you listening?” Aria said. “We just talked about how attacks will only make the shield stronger.”

“I heard that,” Lori said. “But I thought nukes might be different.”

“They tried nukes against the world killer in orbit,” Xin said. “Didn’t work there…”

“Yes, but that was in orbit,” Lori insisted. “This is here.”

“Well, I can understand why the humans wouldn’t want to drop a nuke here,” Aria said. “Considering that Concord, the capital, isn’t all that far away from here.”

Though there were no nukes, there were certainly a lot of blast craters that the team had to navigate past along the way. Upturned trees, their roots exposed, littered the perimeter of those dark pits.

The craters grew in profusion as the team neared the edge of the forest, telling Jason that the Earth bombers had bombarded the shit out of this place already. To no avail.

He glanced at his map, and adjusted his pace so that he’d arrive at the perimeter of the forest at the same time as the War Forger clones. The tree line quickly thinned out, thanks to all the blast craters. He kept low, weaving between the fallen trees as he made his way forward.

“This is the perimeter of the forest,” Sophie said. “Past here, there essentially is no forest.”

Jason ducked behind the next tree, and then peered past the edge. She was right. The trees were so sparse ahead that he could already see the construction site. Airborne drones buzzed back and forth, building a torus-shaped object similar to the world killer he’d seen in space. At least, he assumed it was a torus, given the curvature, though he couldn’t see its middle from here.

He could also clearly see the shield generator inside. Or rather, generators. Eric had described what he expected them to look like.

“Keep an eye out for black, rectangular objects with glowing blue spheres on top,” the Mind Refurb had told him.

Jason spotted two of those, one on the east side of the torus, and another on the south. There were probably two more on the north and west sides.

He’d watched footage from the last invasion, when humanity had created their own energy shields to protect Yellowstone Park from a devastating attack launched by the Mimics. There had been hundreds of shield generators in that case. But humanity was using older technology.

When Eric had reviewed the alien shield designs, he hadn’t been sure if taking down one generator would deactivate the entire force field. But if not, then Jason and his team would simply have to destroy however many awaited inside.

“Taras, get ready to move into position,” Jason sent over the comm.

He received a chorus of replies from Tara and her clones.

He wanted to move to a closer tree, to get a better view of the alien construction site, but the moment he left cover, an energy beam drilled into his shoulder. He quickly dodged behind the tall, thick tree once again.

But the wood quickly melted away in front of him, and he was forced to flatten himself to the ground. Above him, the beam shot through the bark and struck a boulder behind him, finally stopping.

“Stay in cover!” Jason said. “We’re under attack!”

14

Jason glanced at his map.

The other War Forgers had taken cover nearby. The clones of John and Jones were just to the north, while those of Jerry and Julian resided to the south, also in hiding.

A beam struck lower on the tree, and Jason was taking the hit on his chest assembly. He quickly rolled to his feet, and vaulted over the boulder just behind him. He ducked, and was relieved when the rock held up under the bombardments.

“Everyone okay?” he asked, glancing at the status indicators. Everyone was in the green.

Just to the north, he spotted Tara crouched behind a thick tree. To the south, was Aria, though she’d deployed the ballistic shield unique to her mech model, and had dug in. She wasn’t taking any hits at the moment, which was good, because he wasn’t sure how long her shield would hold up.

“Tara, you might want to relocate,” Jason said. “That energy beam eats through wood pretty easily. And Aria, same with you, your shield isn’t going to last long against that.”

He leaned past the boulder and aimed at the source of the plasma beams: a defense turret that had been raised just outside the construction site, in front of the shield.

He opened fire, offering covering fire, while Tara and Aria retreated into nearby blast craters, where the other War Forgers had hidden.

His energy cannon struck the target, but a local energy shield activated in front of it, absorbing the blow.

“Of course,” Jason said.

“Gotta love personal energy shields, huh?” Tara said.

“I was wondering how it escaped the aerial bombardments,” Jason said. “Is there only one of them?”

“As far as I can tell, there’s just the one,” Cheyanne told him.

Jason grabbed the boulder, and lifted. Carrying it in front of his body as a shield, he made his way forward, through the thin trees.

The rock began to feel hot

“You know, the front of your rock is growing red hot from that beam,” Tara said.

“Must be some strong rock you got there,” Lori said.

“Whatever it’s made of, it’s certainly tough,” Jason agreed.

“Well it’s not strong enough,” Tara said. “Because it’s going to melt away before you reach the target!”

Jason was ready to toss the rock; he planned to leap into the blast crater instead. But then the external temperature began to subside, according to his sensors.

“It stopped firing,” Maeran said, seeming stunned.

Jason couldn’t help the smile that painted the lips of his avatar. “Overheated.”

He dashed forward, out from behind the last of the thin trees, and smashed the boulder down into the alien defense turret. The impact caused the energy shield to light up, and the rock split in two, melted down the middle.

But this shield didn’t work the same as the bigger one that enclosed the construction site, because the force field abruptly clicked off.

Jason pointed his energy cannon at the turret and fired at near point blank range. The metallic structure melted away.

“Scratch one defense turret,” he said.

Movement drew his attention to the north. He spotted another defense turret deployed there, and ducked between the rock fragments as it, too, opened fire. Another turret tracked him and opened fire from the south, but the other rock piece protected him.

“War Forgers and clones,” Jason said. “Concentrate your fire on those turrets. Their shields work differently than the bigger shield that envelopes the base. They can only take a certain amount of damage before they fail.”

The teams to the north and south opened fire, and in short ordered they’d depleted the shield enough to strike at the turrets inside, melting them.

Aria came forward with Tara. Aria held her ballistic shield in front of her, and Tara crouched behind her body, long metallic sword in the hand of her Shadow Hawk.

“Loris, cloak,” Jason said. “Circle the perimeter and report back. I want to know where the other defense turrets are. As soon as you can confirm that the path directly in front of us is free from their line of fire, let me know.”

Lori, who was crouched inside a blast crater behind him, became invisible and dropped off the map. Other Lori clones vanished from the map as well.

“So?” Tara’s avatar appeared in the lower right of his HUD. She looked at him expectantly.

“Wait,” Jason said.

Sixty seconds later, two Loris appeared almost simultaneously on the overhead map, outside the perimeter of the construction site, one to the south, one to the north.

“There’s an active defense turret here,” Lori broadcasted, on the southernmost position. “But as far as I can tell, you guys won’t be in the line of fire. Clones, included. The construction site obscures your positions.”

Lori 2, to the north, sent: “The turret here is offline, and I haven’t spotted any others yet. You’re clear.”

“Thank you,” Jason replied, and both Loris vanished from the map as they cloaked yet again.

Jason nodded at Tara. “Move into position. Tara clones, join her.”

“Finally!” Tara dashed forward, leaving cover. To the north and south, other Taras left the forest line where the War Forger clones were dug in.

The five of them converged in front of the energy field—or rather where the team had recorded the shield’s location, since it wasn’t visible at the moment. Then they simply stood in place.

“It’s not working,” Sophie said.

“No…” Jason said. “Taras, report?”

“Damn it,” Tara sent. “The autogating field won’t let us teleport inside. We’re too big.”

Though the Mind Refurbs had managed to send a shuttle past the energy shield of the world killer in orbit, Eric had warned Jason that because the field of the planet-side world killer was so much smaller, there was a chance the teleported matter would have to be commensurately compact.

“All right, backup plan,” Jason broadcast.

The Taras raced back to the closest blast crater and jumped inside so that they weren’t as exposed to potential fire. Then Tara 6 turned toward the other Taras. “Help me rip out my teleportation gear.”

Tara had promised it would take a maximum of half an hour to finish the repurposing, though it would require one of the Taras losing the ability to teleport, namely Tara 6.

Tara 2 worked on her, leaving the other Taras to cover them, as necessary.

Tanis connected. “Be advised, we’re picking up movement in the trees, coming from your three o’clock.”

Jason heard a sudden screeching coming from somewhere behind him, corresponding to the three o’clock direction Tanis had mentioned. Turning around, he saw hideous shapes of fur tearing through the trees. They were about as big as the trees themselves, and thus the mechs. They looked like a combination of porcupines and pigs, with the claws of velociraptors and the razor-like teeth of sharks.

“Bioweapons!” Jason said. “Things are about to get hectic!”

“Porcupigs!” Xin said.

“You say it like they’re cute!” Cheyanne said.

“They are!” Xin said.

Jason fired at the lead porcupig with his energy cannon. He struck it in the center of mass, and it fell with a large gaping wound in its chest. He targeted the next bioweapon, and took it down as well. He continued attacking them as fast as he was able, but they kept coming.

“Do we combine?” Jerry asked.

“Not yet,” Jason said.

One of them got close enough to leap at Xin, and it ripped open her chest assembly before she managed to fire her plasma beam from her eye area. It melted through its face and she shrugged the lifeless body off of her.

“Not so cute!” Xin said.

Other bioweapons began to leap at the other mechs, and Jason found himself wrestling on the ground with one of the porcupigs a moment later. He fired his laser at its chest, and the thing hissed, biting into his shoulder. He felt a sharp pain as its teeth sunk deep, but it was unable to tear away the metal—the material was too strong.

Jason punched upward with his huge fist, slamming it under the creature’s chin, and fired the energy cannon at the same time, causing the head to explode, spraying his body with black blood.

He rolled away from the corpse, only to be assaulted by yet another bioweapon.

“We’re combining,” Jones said.

“We are, too,” Jerry said.

Jason decided to let them. Even if he told them not to do it now, they probably wouldn’t listen to him. He almost felt like combining, too, but he was worried about being targeted by other defense turrets on the other sides of the construction site. The other War Forger clones, led by John and Julian, couldn’t combine at the moment of course, since Tara 2 and 6 were occupied.

Beside him, Tara swung her sword in a flourish, slicing through the bioweapons and leaving a mess of shredded body parts in her wake. Cheyanne worked beside her, gyrating in place, her swords spinning in an impenetrable wave. The two were like an indomitable fan, and the shit was hitting it.

Aria unleashed her lightning weapon at the porcupigs, and it sparked between the creatures. Sophie sent her micro machines forth, and they ate through the flesh of her enemy like hungry insects. Maeran spat that binding substance from her mouth, gluing bioweapons in place. She finished them off by launching her three drones, which formed a deadly energy field between them, slicing through the targets. Iris pounded the ground with her four feet, causing the incoming bioweapons to lose their balance. She flung out those energy whips she wielded, slicing through opponents; sometimes she wrapped the whips around one of them, drawing it toward her, so that she could finish it off with localized energy beam her maw fired.

Jason’s energy weapon overheated, and he switched to the laser, but it wasn’t good enough. A porcupig leaped on him, and he punched it with his left arm, firing the railgun. He kept firing until he depleted all the rounds stored in his bicep.

Then he grabbed one of the dead porcupigs from the growing pile of dead bodies in front of him, and ripped away a huge chunk from its leg, big enough to form a gory, wet club. He swung it about his head as a weapon. He struck the first opponent with it in the face, and the creature fell back, stunned. He struck again, and the meaty leg section broke away.

So much for that.

Nearby, the Cataphracts of Jones and Jerry towered over the battlefield. The huge, combined mechs smashed their fists into the faces of the porcupigs they faced, and pulverized them.

Plasma beams flashed by overhead: the defense turret to the south, which the team hadn’t yet taken down, was firing at the Cataphracts. It hadn’t fired at the team before, because as Lori mentioned, the construction site had obscured them from view, but the Cataphracts towered well above the site, and the forest.

Jones and Jerry held their huge ballistic shields toward the incoming beams, doing their best to protect themselves while they dealt with the bioweapons.

The overheat indicator on his HUD clicked off, and he fired his energy cannon once more, exploding the head of his latest foe.

“Tanis, let’s try some air support,” Jason said. “Can you target the bioweapons streaming in from the forest, and leave us, and the dome, alone?”

“I’ll instruct the jets to drop the bombs no closer than five hundred meters from you,” Tanis said.

That sounded a little close, but Jason decided to trust the admiral’s judgment.

He continued to fight. Jets roared past overhead a moment later, and pounded the exposed enemy lines in front of him. Explosions filled the air only five hundred meters in front of the team, and body parts and earth rained down upon them.

None of the bombs dropped on the War Forgers themselves, but he heard a keening coming from behind him: a moment later some of them exploded above the energy dome that protected the construction site.

“Don’t hit the energy field!” Jason sent the admiral. But it was too late.

“Sorry about that,” Tanis said. “I told them to target the bioweapons alone. The bomber Mind Refurbs are a bit trigger happy.”

Explosions continued to mar the northern half of the energy dome even after the bombers passed.

“Tanis, what’s going on?” Jason said. “The world killer is still under attack.”

It stopped.

“Artillery was firing from the north,” Tanis said. “Somewhere our orders got mixed up along the way.”

“Damn it,” Jason said as he exploded another head. “They’re just making that shield stronger. We might have to take out all four generators now, instead of just one, thanks to you.”

“I know, hopefully it won’t happen again,” Tanis said.

Hopefully. That’s all he can offer.

The bioweapon attack began to subside, and then in a few moments, the last of the porcupigs went down.

“Well, that was… entertaining,” Tara said.

Around the War Forgers, the forest was filled with big walls of towered bodies that were piled well above the tree tops.

“We can use those as defensive bulwarks, if we need to,” Jason said.

He turned toward the construction site, and the alien drones working just out of reach beyond the energy shield that protected it. “Now where’s Lori?”

As he spoke the words, Lori materialized. “I’ve got the position of the final defense turret.”

She sent the data his way, and he accepted.

“We should probably take out the two remaining turrets as soon as possible,” Jason said.

Beside him, Jones and Jerry ducked their Cataphracts behind the piled bodies of the dead porcupigs, which protected them from the attacks of the southern defense turret. The Cataphracts stepped out from behind the cover for a moment, and fired the plasma beams from their hips at the enemy weapon.

“Southernmost turret is offline,” Jones announced.

“Just like that?” Aria asked. “Why didn’t you take it down when it first started firing?”

“Actually, we’ve been attacking it intermittently while dealing with the bioweapon attacks,” Jones said. “Those last beams finally broke through its energy shield.”

“The teleporter is ready,” Tara 6 announced.

“Finally,” Jason said, turning toward the blast crater where Tara 2 was working on her.

“Let’s hope this works,” Tara 2 said. She retrieved an energy grenade from her storage compartment and bent over to open a small box that resided on the ground.

“That’s looks suspiciously like a microwave,” Lori said.

“A micro what?” Cheyanne said. “Wait, I just looked it up. Someone’s from an ancient era…”

Tara 2 shoved the grenade into the machine and shut the door. She passed the device to Tara.

“Aria, join Tara,” Jason said.

Aria went with her, holding her ballistic shield toward the forest as the pair retreated.

“Did you set the timer?” Jason asked over the comm.

“Of course,” Tara 2 sent.

Tara 6 rubbed her back nearby. There was a gaping hole where Tara 2 had removed the device. “Damn, I’m going to miss my teleport ability.”

Tara reached the energy field, and then set the device on the ground. She stepped back, with Aria continuing to provide cover.

A moment later the device disappeared. Jason zoomed in on the generator on that side of the construction site, and spotted the teleportation device at its base. The door opened, and the energy grenade rolled out.

It detonated a moment later, reducing the energy shield, and the teleportation device beside it, to so much slag. The energy shield flickered, becoming visible for a moment, only to fade from view once more.

“All right,” Jason said. “Let’s see if this shield is down.”

He aimed at the construction site and opened fire.

But the convex shape of the energy field flickered into existence once more.

“Damn,” Jason said.

“You think it’s because air support kept bombing it?” Sophie asked.

“Could be,” Jason said. “Looks like we’re going to have to eliminate the other three.”

“Assuming there are only three,” Tara said.

“I can confirm,” Lori said. “I saw only three more in my scouting.”

“Yeah, but there could be more in the center of that donut building,” Tara said.

“Let’s hope not,” Jason said.

Some of the alien drones inside the construction site moved away from the torus they were building, and instead hovered above the melted generator. Their telescoping limbs laid down fresh materials.

“They’re repairing it…” Jones said.

“How long do we have until the generator comes back online?” Jason asked Z.

His Accomp was silent a moment. Observing.

“At the current rate of repair, I’d estimate three hours,” his Accomp replied. “Assuming they don’t run out of the materials they need.”

“I don’t think they’ll be running out,” Jason said. “They brought enough to build a world killer, after all.” He paused. “Three hours. That’s about just enough time.” He turned toward Tara 2. “It’s time to repurpose another teleportation device.”

15

Jain fired at the micro machines that crawled on the floor all around him. The android team had entered a wider compartment, this one with a narrow walkway leading across a series of what looked like sparking transformers. But as soon as they had reached the center of the walkway, micro machines had flooded into the room from either entrance, crawling onto the walkway and trapping the team.

Jain had tried to force his way through the termites, but there were too many of them, and his power cell drained almost to zero, so he had been forced to retreat. His cell was slowly recharging, but it would be a while before he could risk further contact with the tiny things.

The walkway could fit two abreast, so Sheila was beside him, firing her laser, and crouched in front of him were Eric and Cranston, unleashing their plasma rifles. Crusher and Dickson were behind, and fired over the shoulders of Sheila and Jain. Mark and Brontosaurus had swung their bodies over the railing to the left and right of Crusher and Dickson respectively, and gripped the bars with one hand while they leaned out and fired their rifles at the incoming termites with the other.

But even with all of them unleashing hell like that, the micro machines still approached. The termites were slowly forcing the androids back, toward the other team members who were arranged in a similar attack stack behind them; the latter members fired at the termites coming from the opposite direction, and they, too, were being forced backward so that the two defending sides were compressing.

Jain had already thrown two energy grenades; the attack worked relatively well for clearing the termites within the blast radius, however it did no damage to the walkway. The shockwave also hurled several termites onto the defenders, activating their spark defenses.

“I’m throwing a grenade!” Eric glanced at Jain expectantly while releasing several more laser shots. He reached toward his harness with his free hand.

Jain took the hint and slid past Crusher and Dickson so that, when Eric threw the grenade, Jain was shielded from the termites by the bodies of the other androids. Yes, his power cell was that low—he didn’t want to risk being hit by any more termites that might be thrown as shrapnel.

The androids in front of him shielded their faces as the explosion went off, and their exteriors sparked as the micro machines and their fragments triggered the bug zappers. The termites dropped to the floor around them like hail. A couple were hurled directly past the screening androids, and simply landed on the walkway next to Jain. As they roved about randomly, trying to get their bearings, he stomped them.

Crusher slid forward to stand beside Sheila, and Jain took her place next to Dickson. He aimed his rifle over her left shoulder and gazed through the sights: the space the grenade had cleared on the walkway was almost already gone as the termites behind them flowed forward to fill it. Jain unleashed his plasma beam anew.

“Nice path through the ship you chose,” Brontosaurus said between shots. “Could you have chosen one more full of termites?”

“Glad you’re happy with it,” Eric said.

“I really wish I had a Cicada body right about now,” Brontosaurus said.

Mark squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. “What’s a Cicada body?”

“Look it up!” Brontosaurus yelled.

“Can’t,” Mark told him. “I don’t have access to my cloud database. My consciousness is constrained like all hell in here.”

“That’s strange, because I have full access to all my data,” Brontosaurus said. “Then again, I never did have this cloud you speak of.”

“What, you’re saying you got a better brain then I do?” Mark glanced over his shoulder while firing, and still managed to take out five termites in a row, in rapid succession.

Brontosaurus leaned out a little farther, the sinews in his android arm cording, and fired even faster, taking out ten, as if to one up him. And said: “Basically.”

“Impossible,” Mark fired even faster, outdoing Brontosaurus by taking down fifteen in a blur. “You’re a first generation neural net.”

Brontosaurus pulled closer to the rail once more. He shot ten at his usual speed, apparently already content that he’d proven his point. Wise, because anything faster risked an overheating. “First gen? And so I am. But that’s the key, isn’t it? You later models were designed to offload more of your data in the cloud. We didn’t have much of a cloud in my day, unless you count the Internet, so we had to pack as much information as we could into the neural nets we had.”

“At the cost of memory capacity,” Mark said. “I heard some of you begin rewriting older memories when you get to a certain age, because you don’t have the room for them.”

“Hasn’t happened to me yet,” Brontosaurus said.

“How do you know?” Mark said. “Memories are subjective. You’d never notice it. One day you’d lose a childhood memory, but you’d never know, because you wouldn’t remember the childhood memory you lost!”

“Grenade!” Cranston said, the irritation clear in his voice. Like Jain, the former spec ops man didn’t like listening to inane babbling in the middle of combat. Then again, such people weren’t uncommon on the teams. They’d be bragging about all the pussy they got back home in between lighting up tanks. But when things really got hectic, even the chatty usually shut up.

Though that didn’t quite hold true with Mind Refurbs. Not always. Things were hectic now, after all, and that hadn’t stopped them. He blamed it on the powerful, multitasking minds responsible for squeezing those triggers.

Cranston threw the promised grenade to forestall the advance of the termites.

Jain ducked behind Sheila as it detonated, and stomped on the three micro machines that landed unharmed on the walkway next to him.

“They keep coming!” Crusher said. “No matter how many we take down. We could use up all our grenades, and it still wouldn’t make a difference!”

“If we use up all our grenades, the mission is a scrub,” Eric said.

“Yeah well, if we die, the mission is a scrub, too!” Crusher told him.

“How do we know those transformers will kill us?” Dickson said. That was the only thing keeping them on the bridge at the moment.

“We don’t,” Jain said. “Care to volunteer?”

“I’ll do it,” Brontosaurus said.

“No,” Eric said, standing slightly. “Let me.”

But Brontosaurus pushed off from where he was leaning off the railing, and plunged toward the transformers. When he impacted, electricity sparked from the transformers all around him, and Brontosaurus’ body convulsed sickeningly. Some kind of hydraulic fluid foamed from his mouth.

And then the electricity stopped.

Brontosaurus didn’t get up.

Jain glanced at his HUD, where he had the status indicators of all the androids listed; Brontosaurus’ had turned red.

“No!” Eric stood up and vaulted off the railing, landing beside Brontosaurus. The inactive transformers didn’t harm him.

“Everyone, get down there!” Jain said.

They all pulled themselves over the railing and leaped down.

Frogger knelt beside Eric to examine Brontosaurus.

“He’s gone,” Frogger said.

Eric shut his eyes. “We have a backup.” It sounded like he was saying that more for himself than anyone else.

“Yes, we do,” Jain said, resting a reassuring hand on Eric’s shoulder.

Eric shrugged it away angrily, and stood. He nodded at the walkway behind him.

Jain glanced where he indicated, and saw the termites spilling over the edges above.

“Fan out!” Jain said. “Find a way out!”

He turned around and leaped between the blocky transformers, weaving between the large coils that protruded from them. He reached the far side of the compartment and began scanning the bulkhead.

“Here!” Sheila said.

Jain hurried to her position and saw the small entrance below; it was set into the bulkhead where the base of the transformer touched the floor.

“Mark, Cranston, secure it!” Jain said.

The two leaped down.

Meanwhile, Eric reached his side and glared at him. He sent Jain a private message.

“I thought we agreed that I was in charge,” Eric sent.

I never agreed to anything, Jain thought. Even so, he wasn’t going to quibble about their command structure, not now. But before he could agree that Eric was in charge, a terrible shriek came from the passageway below, and then Mark’s status indicator turned red on Jain’s HUD.

“Mark!” Medeia screamed.

She tried to leap down, but Jain physically restrained her by wrapping an arm around her waist. “No!”

Medeia struggled in his grasp. “Let… me… go you fucker!”

She elbowed him in the face, and squeezed his crotch hard enough to pulverize his genitals—good thing he didn’t have any in his current form. It still hurt, though, and he disabled the pain sense.

Despite what she was doing, he didn’t let go, and instead only tightened his grip.

“He’s gone,” Jain told her.

Finally she stopped struggling and simply sagged in his grasp.

Cranston appeared in the opening below and leaped upward, scrambling frantically up the transformer. Jain released Medeia, and was relieved when she didn’t try to jump down. Instead she simply stood there, rifle slung over one shoulder, hugging herself.

Jain reached down and helped Cranston the rest of the way up.

Cranston’s android face was very pale, and it was obvious he was shaken.

“Can’t go that way,” Cranston said.

“Why, what’s there?” Jain asked.

“Can’t go that way,” Cranston repeated.

“Are there any other exits?” Eric asked the team.

“No!” Frogger said from some distance along the curved wall. “That’s the only one.”

“What about the other side of the room?” Eric asked.

Jain turned around. He nodded at the transformers, and the floor between them. “Can’t cross that.” The surface teemed with termites. The micro machines covered the entire western half of the room, between the team and the walkway.

Jain spun on Cranston. “We have to continue. What’s down there? What did you see?”

“I saw… it,” Cranston said.

“It?” Jain said in exasperation. “Give me access to your feed history.”

Jain accelerated his time sense, and connected to Cranston’s recording history. He jumped back one minute in time and played the feed back at an accelerated pace. He watched from Cranston’s viewpoint as the Mind Refurb followed Mark into the passageway. There was a blur, and then the feed went black. It cut back in five seconds later, but Cranston was already retreating by then.

“So, what did he see?” Sheila asked.

“His feed is blank,” Jain said. “The video cut out just before Mark screamed.”

“Convenient,” Marlborough said.

The other Bolt Eaters often called that one Sarge. He obviously had been in command at some point, before Eric took over.

Sheila considered what Jain said. “An EMP weapon could do that.”

“An EMP would have disabled Cranston,” Medeia said, still hugging herself.

“Not necessarily,” Bambi said. “These androids are equipped with advanced EMP voltage rerouting hardware. The camera feed temporarily going offline is a sign that the EMP rerouting was successful, because the camera subroutines reboot in an over voltage scenario.”

“But that still doesn’t tell us what happened to your man,” Frogger told Jain.

“No,” Jain said with a glance at Cranston. “Only Cranston knows.”

But the former spec ops man merely stared down at the hole, as if expecting it to come alive and eat them all at any instant.

“It takes a lot to disturb a man of his mettle,” Jain said.

Crusher stepped to the edge and gazed down. “So what you’re saying is, whatever is down there, it’s worse than the micro machines.”

“Probably,” Jain said.

“But if we stay here, we’re dead anyway.” Eric gazed at the ever approaching micro machines. Their tiny metal feet made an audible skittering sound on the transformers, which was magnified by the sheer number of them, not to mention the echo-like acoustics of the room.

“We are.” Jain tightened his grip on his rifle. He fired at the wall in front of him, hoping the plasma beam would drill through, but instead he melted away only a small crater.

He sighed. “I’m going down.”

“I’ll go with you,” Eric said immediately.

Eric was about to leap down, when Bambi rested an urgent hand on shoulder.

“No,” Bambi said. “Let someone else go. You’re our leader.”

“If I could beat the Curator, I can beat this,” Eric told her.

“But I helped you,” Bambi said. “I will go too, then.”

“Not this time,” Eric said. “Marlborough, you’re in charge until I get back.” He returned his attention to Jain.

“Just the two of us,” Jain said.

“No, stay,” Sheila told him. “Let someone else go. Cranston.”

Cranston bit his lower lip, but straightened slightly. “I’ll go, if you need me to.”

“No,” Jain said. “You’ve done enough. Eric and I will handle this. You’re in command, Cranston, if I don’t make it.” He glanced at Eric, and the man nodded.

Jain smiled grimly, and together they leaped down to face death.

16

Jain advanced through the passageway. It didn’t seem any different than any of the previous routes: the bulkheads formed a rectangular shape with the deck and overhead and glowed a dark blue.

Eric remained close to his side. The two easily fit abreast here. A third android probably could have fit, if they had allowed it.

Ahead, Jain spotted the remnants of Mark lying on the floor. Witnessing his friend reduced like that, well, it felt almost like being punched in the stomach. He accelerated his time sense, slowing the external world, taking a moment to recover; when he was good, he returned reality to its normal pace.

He went to his friend and knelt to examine him. Seeing Mark up close made the pain come back all over again. Mark’s chest was melted open. On his face, his eyes were permanently wide, and his expression frozen in a rictus of pain.

Jain had witnessed the death of different Void Warriors before when their ships had been blown up in the cold void of space. But this was different. This was up close and personal, more real, reminiscent of the deaths of fellow SEALs from his human days. Instead of space debris, Mark had left behind an actual body, even if that body was robotic in nature. Jain reminded himself that Mark had created a fresh mind backup before undertaking the mission, so he wasn’t truly dead. Though that was little help to this version of Mark, who would never interact with this universe in any form ever again.

“What did this?” Eric asked. He kept an eye on the passageway ahead, constantly gazing from the bulkheads to the overhead and back again, as if expecting the walls to come alive.

As he looked down at Mark, Jain found it hard to keep his emotions out of the equation… and harder still to regard the body of his friend as some object simply to be analyzed. But he had a mission to complete. And a hidden enemy to defeat.

“Could have been a lot of things,” Jain finally said. “The blast pattern in the chest is consistent with something an energy weapon might cause. Could have been a plasma weapon, or something equivalent to our energy grenades.” He examined the small burn holes in the uniform below Mark’s neck; he slid his hand underneath the fabric, poking a finger through one of the holes. “These could have been caused by a laser.”

“So it wasn’t a bioweapon,” Eric said.

“Either a robot, or a bioweapon with cybernetic attachments,” Jain told him.

Then he felt an intrusion.

Jain stiffened. Something was accessing his internal subroutines.

He quickly heightened his time sense, and slowed reality to a halt around him.

He attempted to deactivate his internal radio, and thus stop all incoming transmissions, but it was too late. The radio didn’t answer to his requests.

“Sheila,” he sent mentally over the comm. “The AI has infiltrated my system somehow.”

No answer.

He realized his message hadn’t even gotten out. He tried to turn his body. It wouldn’t respond. He attempted to adjust his time sense. No good.

But then time abruptly snapped to normal.

He glanced at Eric, whose face was a mask of concentration. Then the look faded.

“Something just tried to get into my neural net,” Eric said. “I’ve isolated the code, and neutralized it.”

Jain found himself wearing a puzzled expression. “What was it?” he said, though he hadn’t spoken the words.

“I think it was the ship’s AI,” Eric said. “It found a zero day backdoor in our communications code. I believe I’ve patched it, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more backdoors. I’d recommend changing all external encryption keys, especially those used for comms, at the very least. I’m sending the isolation code your way, so you can run it.”

Jain received a sharing request, and the entity in control of him automatically accepted it. But then it promptly slid the code to the trash icon, and didn’t execute it.

“It’s done,” Jain said. No it’s not! “I’m fully inoculated.”

Eric nodded.

Jain still had access to his internal file system. He frantically pulled up the file navigation system and overlaid it on his HUD. As he watched, internal files were being deleted across the board. Those were all memories… he was watching his life being deleted.

He accessed the trash folder, and saw that the intruder hadn’t yet emptied it, meaning the memories weren’t fully deleted, not yet.

“Whatever did this is still out there,” Eric was saying.

As his body nodded of its own volition, Jain scrolled through the list of files in the trash folder, and was relieved when he found Eric’s isolation code. He prayed he could still execute it.

He focused on the isolation program and activated it. The code worked rapidly, spreading through his system like a virus, and a moment later the entity left his mind and Jain was in control once more.

Just in time. He had retrieved a grenade from his harness, and was about to throw it at Eric, who had walked ahead of him to survey the passage.

“I just executed the code,” Jain said.

Eric glanced over his shoulder distracted, and when he saw that Jain held a grenade, he did a double take, and turned around completely, aiming his weapon at Jain’s chest.

Jain raised his hands in surrender. “I’m in control again. The alien AI almost made me throw this grenade at you. I’m going to put it back in my harness, okay?” He slowly slid the bomb back into his harness.

Eric gave him a suspicious look. “How do I know it’s really you?”

“Because I would have thrown that grenade at your back,” Jain said. “Rather than letting you know I’d flushed the enemy AI.”

Eric frowned. “What took you so long to execute the program I sent?”

“The AI had moved it to my trash folder, but forgot to delete it entirely,” Jain said. “I still had access.”

Eric’s eyes widened in sudden alarm. “But if you were so easily controlled, then that means…”

A shout came behind Jain, sourced from the transformer compartment. It was followed by rifle fire.

Jain turned around and raced frantically back toward his friends. Eric followed on his heels.

He reached the edge of the transformer and leaped up. He landed next to the coil, and peered past it to survey the situation.

Cranston was hidden behind a transformer nearby, and he was firing at the others, who had taken cover around him. They, in turn, were returning fire.

“He’s gone crazy!” Frogger shouted.

Meanwhile, the termites continued to close with them all. They were close to Frogger’s position, in fact.

As their unofficial commanding officer, the Void Warriors had given Jain override access to their AI cores, for a situation just like this. He used that access to attempt a log on into Cranston’s mind, and was relieved when he succeeded. He uploaded the inoculating code and executed it.

Cranston stopped firing.

“I’m back!” Cranston said.

“He had a virus,” Jain explained. “I inoculated him. Void Warriors, I’m going to access you minds and inject the inoculating code into all of your minds, as a precaution.” He glanced at Eric. “I suggest you do the same with your Bolt Eaters.”

Jain used his access rights to inject the code into the other Void Warriors in turn, executing it.

He turned toward Eric, and was about to ask him if he’d installed the code into the Bolt Eaters, when he saw him kneeling on top of a transformer nearby. Sprawled out next to the coils lay the body of Bambi.

The top of her head had been blown open.

“She’s not dead,” Eric was muttering. “She’s not dead.”

Remembering the pain that Jain himself had felt mere moments ago when he looked at the remnants of Mark, he leaped onto the transformer beside Eric, hoping to console him.

His landing seemed to startle the Bolt Eater. Eric looked up, and his eyes were filled with a sudden hate.

“Your man did this,” Eric said through gritted teeth. He shoved past Jain and leaped between the different transformers in a blur until he stood next to Cranston. He promptly held his rifle to Cranston’s head.

Cranston did nothing to stop him. He simply remained there on his knees before him.

“Don’t fire!” Jain shouted. “I’ve executed the inoculating code. He’s back to normal!”

Eric kept his weapon in place, but didn’t fire, at least.

“Lower the weapon,” Jain tried.

Eric ignored him.

Jain glanced at the termites, which were ever encroaching on the group. The others had already shifted positions, moving away from the micro machines and toward the exit in the far wall. Eric and Cranston remained in place, the termites almost upon their particular transformer.

Jain leaped between the transformers until he stood on the structure next to them.

“Stay back!” Eric warned.

“We don’t have time for this,” Jain said. “The micro machines are almost here. We have a mission to complete. It’s not his fault. Lower the rifle.”

Eric still didn’t move.

“It wasn’t his fault…” Jain pleaded a final time.

Sergeant Marlborough leaped onto the transformer, joining Eric and Cranston. Eric didn’t respond, not at first. But when Marlborough laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, he glanced at the older android.

“We’ve all lost brothers and sisters in this life.” Marlborough smiled fleetingly. “Though that’s changed a little now… we get them back. We always do. It’s the nature of our existence as Mind Refurbs. When this is over, Bambi will be back, stronger than ever. But only if we win. So you have to let this go, son. We have to complete this mission, if you ever want to see her again.”

Eric shook his head. “But the way she died… so horribly…”

Marlborough rested a hand on his shoulder. “Let it go. The lad wasn’t in control of his faculties. We have him back now. I’m sure the guilt is eating away at him, more than you can imagine. He wouldn’t have let you target him so easily otherwise. Let the guilt be his punishment.”

Eric hesitated, then finally lowered his rifle. He glared at Cranston, and then turned away, leaping onto the transformer next to Jain, and proceeding toward the next one.

Still on his knees, Cranston slumped, though he seemed disappointed somehow.

Eric reached the far transformer next to the bulkhead, and leaped down toward the exit. “Let’s go before I kill someone.”

Jain glanced at Marlborough. “Did he install the inoculating code into the rest of you?”

He seemed distracted, but answered: “Yes, he did.”

“All right, we’re changing our encryption keys and channel band,” Jain said. “To prevent something like this from happening again.” He sent the new keys, and switched to the new band using the keys. The others logged in one by one, joining the comm line.

Marlborough leaped onto Jain’s transformer, and when he passed him, he said: “You probably should go to your man.” The Sarge jumped onto the next transformer, and joined the other Bolt Eaters who proceeded toward the exit. The Void Warriors meanwhile waited for Jain and Cranston next to the bulkhead.

Jain joined Cranston on the transformer. The micro machines had reached it, and were crawling toward his body.

“We have to go, Cranston,” Jain said.

“I killed her,” Cranston said, gazing downward. “In cold blood. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“You weren’t in control,” Jain said. “It was the vessel’s alien AI. It got in your head through a back door.”

“But I’m supposed to be stronger than this,” Cranston said.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong you are,” Jain said. “Sometimes, your own brain is going to betray you, because of the nature of your mind, and there isn’t anything you can do about it, except fight on when you get control again.”

Sparks appeared on Cranston’s calves as the outlying termites reached his kneeling form.

“Maybe it’s time to let me die for good,” Cranston said. “Maybe you should let me go here, and never restore my backup. Delete that backup.”

“Can’t do it,” Jain said. “You know that. You’re a special operator. You know that we never give up, no matter how grim the situation becomes. The training weeded out those of us who had the most heart. You can’t tell me you’re going to lose that heart after all these years.”

“But I’ve never killed an innocent before,” Cranston said. “My own team member.”

“It wasn’t you,” Jain repeated. “It was never you.” He offered a hand to Cranston as the sparks caused by dying micro machines increased. Jain’s own boots began to spark, too, as termites reached him as well. “Come with me Cranston, we need you. Show this enemy that they can’t control our minds. Show them what happens when they try to break us. Show them that it only makes us stronger. Come with me, Cranston, and fight again. ”

Cranston finally looked up and there were tears in his eyes. For a moment Jain forgot that Cranston inhabited an android, an advanced humanoid replica equipped with tear ducts meant to keep the artificial eyes moist. In that instant, Cranston was completely human.

As was Jain. And his own eyes became wet.

Cranston stood up. “Let’s kick the ass of these fuckers.”

17

Jason and the others were deployed inside blast craters next to the north side of the construction site, close to the next shield generator. The forest was quiet around them.

At first Jerry and Jones had remained in Cataphract form to pile the bodies of the porcupigs in protective barriers around the new position of the War Forgers, but when that was done, both returned their clones to the separated state so that the constituent Mind Refurbs could have a chance to function independently once more—the clones had to give up their individuality when combined.

After separating, Tara 3 volunteered to have her teleportation device extracted to serve as the transport medium for the next bomb. Tara 2 worked on her.

Meanwhile John took his team around to the west to eliminate the final defense turret; when he radioed his success, Jason told him to stay there to guard against attacks from that quarter.

“Remember when we used to be professional gamers, back when we were human?” Jones said while the Taras worked.

“Yeah, I do,” Jason said.

“Those were some of the best days of our life,” Jones said. “Getting up when we wanted to. Following our own schedule. Living alone. No responsibilities. No girls. I miss those days.”

“Yeah, but I bet you don’t miss the wild sex!” Jerry said.

“True, that,” Jones admitted. “But there’s more to life than sex.”

“Don’t tell that to Lori,” Julian quipped.

“Someone say my name?” Lori 6 asked.

“Should’ve muted the women!” Jerry said.

Jason expected some retort from the women, but none came. They were too busy watching the trees around them, and the construction site behind them. Jason didn’t blame them. He was nervous as hell, too.

“I don’t know how you guys can do it,” Aria finally said. “I mean, talk so casually, at a time like this.”

“It’s how we deal with the stress,” Jones said. “If we kept our lips shut like you ladies, I don’t know how we’d manage. Speaking of which, how do you control it?”

“Keeping alert is good enough for us,” Aria said. “We don’t need dirty jokes, or to tease each other, or to brag about our exploits. It’s enough to watch the trees around us. That calms our minds.”

“All right, well, whatever works for you,” Jones said.

“Not all women are the same,” Lori 3 said. “Some of us like to tease right along with the guys, too! Nice tits, Jerry!”

“Uh, thanks,” Jerry said. He lowered his voice and leaned conspiratorially toward Jones beside him. “She’s obviously not very good at this.”

“I heard that!” Lori 3 said.

“Let’s get some quiet here,” Jason said. “The shit could hit the plasma injector any time here, you all know that.” He connected with the admiral. “How are things looking up there, Tanis?”

“The forest is dead silent around you,” Tanis said. “I’ll let you know the moment that changes.”

Tara 2 only just finished repurposing Tara 3’s teleportation device when the ground began to shake.

Tanis connected. “I’m detecting a disturbance in the forest to your north.”

“Tara 2, place the bomb!” Jason ordered. “Aria, join her! John, get your team back here!”

Aria shielded her as the pair raced toward the energy field.

Jason gazed through the thin line of trees that lined the edge of the forest; some of the boles were being knocked aslant as the dirt underneath was displaced. The dirt formed humps that spread across the ground in long lines, heading directly toward the War Forgers and their clones. When the forefronts of those humps passed near blast craters, sometimes the edges of the craters fell away, and the open cross-sections gave him a view of slimy, ribbed flesh, like that of some huge worm, though colored a sickly gray.

“Looks like we have more bioweapons!” Jason said. “Fire at will!”

He unleashed his energy weapon at the forefront of the closest approaching hump. It didn’t stop the advance of the displaced dirt.

He heard an explosion behind him.

“Bomb teleported, and detonated!” Tara 2 said. “That’s another shield generator down.”

“Start working on the next one!” Jason told Tara 2. “Tara 5, let her extract your teleporter!”

Jason fired again, and the dirt of the closest approaching hump exploded outward and an angry worm-like head emerged. Eight segments parted like the petals of a flower, and a green liquid sprayed Jason and the War Forgers.

“Acid!” Jason said.

“Warning, hull armor is weakening,” Z said.

Jason dodged to the side as that huge worm came in. Another worm emerged directly underneath him, wrapping its jaws around his legs, and pulling him down. He pummeled it with his fist, and fired his energy cannon at point blank range until its body burst open.

Around him, worms erupted from the ground left and right, keeping the War Forgers occupied.

Jason scrambled to his feet. He upped his time sense and glanced at his damage screen: his hull armor had stabilized. Apparently the acid had dissipated after a few seconds. That was a relief. His chest was no longer smoking, another good sign.

Jason still operated at his heightened time sense when his eyes were drawn to movement behind the screen overlaying his vision. He dismissed the screen, but was too late to dodge the next worm, even at his current time rate. It slammed into him, sending his body careening to the right; another worm emerged and hit him in the opposite side, veering him to the left, so that his body was suspended between two competing forces.

He fired his laser, and one of the worms screamed, but the other was wrapping around his body like a python. He tried to counter it, but it had already squeezed his arms to his sides, and began to crush his acid-damaged chest assembly.

It released another coating of acid from its mouth, spraying it across his chest and face.

And then its head was unceremoniously chopped off.

Cheyanne stood beside him, sword steeped in the black blood of her enemies. Jason returned reality closer to its normal speed, though still operated at a slightly accelerated rate, and gave her an appreciative nod. She was already turning around to jab at the next creature.

Two more worms headed toward him, but a giant sword swept in front of him, and cut both in half. It belonged to a Cataphract: Jones had combined once more, and Julian had joined him, and fought, towering, nearby.

The other nearby War Forgers had formed a protective formation around Tara 2 and 5 so the two could work on the next teleportation bomb.

Jason retreated to the ring so that he was standing with them.

John’s team arrived, and reinforced their ranks against the attackers. The Cataphracts were doing a good job of deflecting the worms, but enough got through that Jason and the others remained under constant pressure.

“Combine?” Aria asked.

“It’s time,” Jason agreed.

All of his War Forgers were relatively close together, so he engaged combine mode.

The world faded as he entered virtual reality. He was holding hands with Tara, Sophie, Lori, Aria, and Xin, forming a ring. They were all dressed in white, and standing in a meadow of flowers beneath a bright sunny sky.

“It’s been a while,” Lori said.

“Can’t say I’m looking forward to having you in my head again,” Sophie said.

“I can’t wait!” Lori said.

Sophie rolled her eyes.

Energy pulses fed into his body from their hands, pulses that traveled up the virtual ganglia of his arms and into his chest. When they touched his mind, those pulses caused a change in cognition. His viewpoint zoomed far inward, so that he was observing the raw connections of their neural networks, as their different minds interlinked. They shared their most sacred memories, their most closely guarded secrets. Yes, everyone had a secret, even Mind Refurbs. He always forgot the memories when they separated—it was the nature of their join—so he was still shocked by some of the things the women had done while they were still human. Some of which were positively evil. Not that his past was any cleaner.

But none of that mattered anyway. Not here. Here, all was forgiven.

His consciousness returned to the real world. The six mechs involved in the join ran toward each other, ignoring the worms. They interlocked limbs, forming a body with the sum of their parts. Jason formed the head, Aria the chest. Tara became the right arm. Sophie the left. Lori functioned as the left leg. Xin the right. Panels opened, revealing hidden tracks that allowed weapons and body parts to reposition as necessary. Sophie’s micro machines clumped together in specific locations, enlarging Aria’s ballistic shield, Tara’s sword, and Lori’s tail.

And then he was towering over the battle field at roughly three times his former size, gazing down at the treetops, and the worms that now reached only to a height of just above his knees. He felt so powerful, he could have laughed.

I missed this.

“Try not to get too full of yourself,” Aria said.

“Who me? Full of myself? Never!” Jason swung his massive sword before him, cutting off the heads of three worms that rushed him.

In addition to the sword, he had inherited Lori’s cloaking ability, Tara’s teleport ability, Sophie’s jumpjets and energy shield, Aria’s shield and lightning weapon, and Xin’s plasma beam, which fired from his right hip courtesy of Xin’s current positioning. He also had his original energy cannon, which was now positioned on his shoulder equivalent, instead of his forearm.

Turning invisible used up a lot of power, and would be easy to track, given his size—his footsteps alone would give him away. There were other limitations. While the weapon output was relatively the same as before—he could fire the lightning weapon just as much as Aria could in mech form, for example—the non-weapon skills could be used only three times in total before a half hour rest was required: three teleports in a row, or one teleport, one energy shield activation, and one invisibility cloak engagement. The jumpjet also had a far more limited range, thanks to the weight it had to push around.

All of that passed through Jason’s head in a heartbeat. He was already swinging his sword toward the next opponent, and firing his energy cannon and lightning weapon at another.

Behind him, Cheyanne, Iris, and Maeran, along with the War Forger clones of John and Jerry—who couldn’t combine while their Taras were occupied—remained in mech form, protecting Tara 2 and 5 while they worked.

A worm snuck past the Cataphract to Jason’s right, and he swatted it with his tail, sending it flying into the energy field of the construction site. It convulsed for a moment after it struck, and then flopped to the ground dead.

Jason walked forward, advancing toward the next group of incoming dirt mounds. He felt powerful, yes, but also lumbering: he was definitely slower in this form. He lost his balance when he stepped between blast craters, and ended up stumbling into one of them.

Before he could regain his balance, three worms emerged from the ground beside him and dove into his feet.

Jason plunged backward, falling. He managed to swivel around and set his foot on the ground in front of him, but momentum carried him forward. He ran, but it was the run of someone who was already falling, and knew they were soon going to hit the ground. He veered away from the other Cataphracts and defending clones, and headed straight toward the energy field that surrounded the world killer construction site.

The three worms remained attached to his feet, further unbalancing him.

He finally lost his footing entirely and plunged toward the energy field. He unleashed the plasma beam at his hips as he fell, and it sliced through the creatures; before he hit the force field, he fired his jumpjets to straighten himself.

“Almost forgot I had those,” he commented.

“You would,” Sophie said.

Jason continued to fight, using all the firepower available to him, but holding off on the non-weapon abilities for now, wanting to save them until he needed them.

The worms began to wane.

But then four new enemies appeared ahead, standing tall above the forest, like Jason and the other Cataphracts. Metallic plates covered their segmented body.

“They look like huge robot rhinoceroses,” Julian said.

“More like triceratops, with the way that bony frill surrounds its neck,” Jones said.

The bony plates forming the frill at the back of their heads lit up, glowing a bright green, and Jason knew that incoming fire was imminent.

He upped his time sense and swung his silver ballistic shield toward the enemy; he activated his energy shield at the same time, just in case.

A series of green plasma beams erupted from the edges of the glowing frills and traveled downward to the horns at the tips of their noses; the noses themselves glowed a bright green, and from them shot four thick beams. Two of those beams targeted Jason, the others Julian and Jones.

The two beams struck Jason’s energy shield, and drained it to zero. His ballistic shield snapped into place a moment later.

But Jason wasn’t going to wait for the next strike. He activated his teleport device and appeared next to the lead Triceratops. He swung down with his sword, but the blade deflected off the unit’s energy shield in a shower of sparks.

Flashes of light drew his gaze to the other Triceratops robots beside him. Julian and Jones had dropped from above, having used their limited jumpjets to close with the other two metal behemoths—the pair couldn’t teleport, since the teleporters of their Taras had been taken out. Their swords similarly deflected from the energy shields of their targets.

The Triceratops in front of Jason swiveled its head toward him, and he brought his shield to bear just as it unleashed another plasma shot. The other behemoth behind it released a beam at the same time, and the combined attacks turned the center of his shield a bright red.

He slammed his body forward, letting the ballistic shield hit the force field of his foe; he felt the vibrations from the impact pass into his body, and it rattled his chest assembly. It felt like he’d hit an immovable steel wall. He continued to shove, seeing the outskirts of the force field that protected the Triceratops flashing on either side of his silver shield, and he felt it give slightly. He was draining that field. But the cost was damage to his ballistic shield, which was now completely red, and white hot in the center.

And then the force field collapsed. Jason’s shield struck the side of the Triceratops, and toppled the behemoth. It landed hard, crushing the trees beside it, and Jason plunged his sword into its unprotected belly. A green glow alerted him to an attack from the other Triceratops nearby, and he hurled himself behind the fallen body—he couldn’t activate his own energy field again, not until he let it recharge. He’d used too many of his non-weapon abilities in a row. And he didn’t dare use his shield again, not in its current state.

He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Jones and Julian had similarly vanquished their own foes by wearing down the force fields with their ballistic shields, then stabbing them with their swords. Jones charged the final behemoth, and unleashed his weapons in rapid succession in an attempt to drain its force field.

Jason and Julian added to the attack by launching energy cannons, lightning weapons, plasma beams, and plasma bolts. In short order the enemy’s shield collapsed, and their weapons dug into the screaming robot’s unprotected form.

“You’d think it couldn’t turn off its pain sense or something,” Julian said as he stood above the pile of debris that the robot had become.

Movement drew Jason’s gaze to the north, where another Triceratops had appeared.

“Not again!” Jones said.

Jason narrowed his eyes as he gazed at the Triceratops, and saw the faint, telltale signs of a rift: the sky and forest beyond appeared slightly pinched, as if he viewed them through the lens of a funhouse mirror. “That has to be a rift.”

He dropped to the ground as the behemoth fired its plasma beam. The air singed above him.

“Where’s the usual fringe of purple mist that’s supposed to surround it?” Jones asked. He had also dropped nearby.

“Must be cloaked!” Julian said, also from the ground.

“We have to get to the other side,” Jason said. “And stop them from sending more of these things.”

“We might get trapped on the other side…” Jones said.

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Jason told him. “Anyone have a teleportation charge left?”

“Our Taras can’t teleport anymore, remember?” Jones replied.

“Oh yeah.” Jason said. “Concentrate fire.” He pushed himself off the ground slightly and engaged all his weapons. All three of them pelted the enemy with their weapons, and continued firing after the shield went down, until the creature lay in a pile of melted metal.

The three of them rushed the rift, knowing that more Triceratopses, and perhaps other robots or bioweapons, waited on the other side, no doubt preparing to pass through right at that moment.

“Where are you going?” Cheyanne transmitted.

“Only be gone a few minutes,” Jason said.

“Famous last words,” Iris sent.

“I hope not.” Jason stepped through.

18

Jason had entered darkness. He couldn’t see a thing, so he activated his LIDAR as he moved forward to make room for Jones and Julian.

The outline of a Triceratops appeared directly in front of him. There were more behemoth outlines behind it.

A bright green glow illuminated a plain of black shale. The glow was sourced from the bony frill of the Triceratops.

Jason dove to the ground.

Julian entered behind him, and his energy shield activated as the plasma beam struck him. It penetrated his shield and ripped into his right arm.

Jones emerged after him, stepping into Julian and knocking him off balance. Julian crashed to the shale.

Other glows appeared in the background as the other five Triceratopses engaged their plasma beams. Jason was already rolling on the ground—he couldn’t rely on his ballistic shield, nor his energy shield. Motion was the only thing that could save him. He rolled behind a structure whose wireframe representation on the LIDAR reminded him of a huge Quonset.

There were sheds nearby, lining the plains that were partly illuminated by the fading glows from the behemoths. When the glows subsided entirely, only their LIDAR representations remained.

Jason leaned past his cover and unleashed hell on the closet Triceratops. Jones and Julian had dug themselves into the loose shale in front of the rift, their ballistic shields held in front of their bodies. They fired past the edges of those shields and into the same opponent.

Meanwhile the other big robots returned fire, concentrating on Julian. The LIDAR-illuminated darkness was lit up by the glows of weaponry on both sides.

The combined attacks from the Cataphracts caused the shield of the targeted Triceratops to fail. The team kept up the relentless assault until the behemoth fell.

The edges of Julian’s ballistic shield were beginning to whittle away by then, and he was taking hits on his exposed extremities now. Julian crouched lower into the shale, trying to avoid the attacks.

Jason didn’t have a good view of the other targets from his current position, so he clambered up the round edges of the Quonset—the magnetic mounts in his feet helped him. The structure supported his weight. Good.

When he reached the top, he dropped and aimed down at the targets.

“Take cover behind the Quonset!” Jason offered suppressive fire while Julian and Jones ducked behind the structure.

The behemoths directed their attacks at him, and Jason was forced to retreat past the curved top of the Quonset. He deactivated his magnetic mounts and slid down the edge, landing on the ground beside Julian and Jones.

“More are coming from the other sheds,” Jones said.

“More Triceratopses?” Julian asked.

“Uh huh,” Jones replied.

Jason nodded. “This has to be some kind of staging area. Any of them coming from the Quonset beside us?”

“Nope,” Julian said. “At least not yet. I’m guessing, the ones we already fought came from here.”

Another rift opened—it showed up on Jason’s LIDAR as two interlocking lines sourced in midair; he only saw its outskirts from where he was hiding, and that was because it was broad, reaching beyond the upper edges of the Quonset.

“You see that?” Julian said.

“Yup,” Jason told him.

Julian was the closest to the edge of the Quonset, so Jason accessed his LIDAR feed. The new rift was positioned midway between the original rift and the attacking robots.

More bioweapons flooded through the rift on the LIDAR imagery. Four-legged creatures with heads covered in trailing tentacles. Ugly things. They were tall, too: just as big as the Cataphracts. When those tentacles touched, they unleashed sparks of electricity that lit up the darkness, accompanied by appropriately intimidating cracks. The creatures raced across the shale and poured through the original rift to Earth.

“We have to stop them,” Jones said. “I don’t think these new bioweapons will be all that easy for the others to defend against.”

“Probably not,” Jason agreed. “Especially if their numbers don’t let up.”

He dismissed Julian’s feed and hurried to the far side of the Quonset to peer past. The Triceratopses were closing with his position, attempting to outflank them. A green glow lit up the dark—he’d been spotted. He ducked immediately and a plasma beam cut through the murk beside him.

He returned to the others. “The robots are coming in from the other side. We don’t have much time.”

Jason peered past Julian and Jones, toward the rift, and spotted the outlines of five smaller structures next to it.

“One of those has to be the rift generator,” Jason said.

“The question is, which one?” Jones told him.

“One of them, or all of them…” Jason said. “Doesn’t matter. We destroy them all.”

Julian aimed past the edge of the Quonset toward one of the generators.

“Wait!” Jason said, shooting out his hand to lift Julian’s arm. “You don’t want to trap us here, do you?”

“Oh, yeah…” Julian said. He lowered his arm sheepishly.

“We’re going to have to place energy grenades on a timer.” Jason opened up the storage compartment of his original mech, and scooped out one of his grenades. He essentially shoved what he considered his “finger” inside the compartment, and then utilized a small hand built into the tip of that finger—which in reality was Tara’s arm—to grab a grenade. He magnetically mounted it to his shoulder for easy access, and then removed similar grenades from the compartments of the other mechs that composed his body.

“Is one grenade enough for each of them?” Jones asked.

“Depends on if they’re shielded,” Julian said. “We should probably plant three per generator. And program them to detonate in rapid succession.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jason said.

The other two opened up their own storage compartments.

“Give them all to me,” Jason said.

“Are you sure?” Jones said.

“Uh huh,” Jason told them. “You’ll cover me while I plant them.”

He accepted the grenades in turn until he had ten more mounted to his shoulders, for a total of fifteen. They were relatively tiny compared to the current breadth of his shoulders—they would have been about the size of thumbnails, if he were human.

He positioned himself next to Julian and peered past the edge of the Quonset. He could see the bioweapons moving into the rift with his own LIDAR feed: the creatures were concentrating on entering the rift in front of them and seemed oblivious to everything else.

There was a small aisle of shale between the huge Quonset where the Cataphracts hid and the rift to Earth. The first Triceratops the trio had taken down after arriving lay on the shale in that aisle. Beyond them, he could see the other behemoth robots. The head plates of the lead glowed a bright green, and he ducked from view as the plasma beam shot past.

“Notice how they’re not trying to shoot at the Quonset?” Jones said.

“Could be multiple reasons for that,” Jason said. “Probably none of them good.”

“You’re worried there might be more Triceratops things inside?” Julian asked.

“Could be,” Jason said. “They probably build them in these. So they’d be in various stages of construction. If I were these aliens, I wouldn’t want to damage my inventory of robots, either.”

“Got company!” Jones lit up the dark as he fired lightning and energy bolts toward the opposite side of the Quonset: the flanking group of Triceratopses had reached the far end.

That, or fresh robots were emerging from the very Quonset they were using for cover.

Jason wished his teleportation device had recharged, but it hadn’t.

Have to do this the hard way.

“Cover me,” Jason told Julian.

Julian laid down suppressive fire, aiming down the aisle between the Quonset and the bioweapons to fire at the Triceratopses approaching from that vector.

Jason retracted his sword and shield to free up his hands, then leaped from cover; he fired his jumpjets for added speed and scooped up the body of the fallen robot, grabbing it by its four legs and scrunching them together like a cowboy hog-tying a calf at a rodeo.

Then he lifted, and dragged the body away from the Triceratopses, and the bioweapons. Some of them fired at him, but the behemoth’s body shielded him, as planned. He circled away from the Quonset, and the tears in spacetime, intending to approach the original rift from behind. The robots wouldn’t be able to fire at him there, as their attacks would pass through the rift to Earth.

But his movements attracted the attention of some of the nearby bioweapons, and he was forced to fire at them as they veered away from the stream of bodies to attack him. They clapped their tentacles together, forming bolts of lightning. He ducked behind the metal body, continuing to drag it and use it as a shield, until he moved behind the rift to Earth.

Then he swung the body of the dead Triceratops at the closest Lightning Spitter, still gripping it by both legs like a roped pig, and bashed in its tentacled face with the hard metal. As that one fell, he threw the robot body at the next bioweapon, and followed up with an energy attack from his shoulder, a lightning attack from his arm, a plasma beam attack from his hip, and a plasma bolt from his tail. The four attacks took down the next two bioweapons in rapid succession.

The final one that had pursued him stood there, as if stunned by the ferocity of the attack, and Jason used that fatal pause to rush the bioweapon. He extended his sword and shield into his hands once more, and slammed his blade home, embedding it to the hilt in the Lightning Spitter’s chest. The creature slammed its tentacles together, but Jason had already veered to the side, sliding the weapon across as he did so, widening the tear in its chest, and the lightning struck the shale around him harmlessly.

The creature slid from his sword, dead.

Jason stood next to the first three generators. He tried to touch one: sure enough, it was shielded. He retrieved three energy grenades from his shoulder and placed them at the base of the generator, just outside the perimeter of the shield. He set the timers so that they’d detonate in rapid succession. Hopefully it would be enough to penetrate the shield and take down the generator.

He knew that Julian and Jones were continuing to attack behind him, because the darkness continued to light up with intermittent flashes.

He moved between the other four small structures in the shale, and placed three grenades in front of each of their shield generators. He synced the timers of the grenades to match the original three he’d planted so that all of the generators would go down at the same time.

“It’s done!” Jason said. He returned to the edge of the rift that was closest to the Quonset, and stayed ducked beside it. “Once the two of you join me, we’ll loop to the far side of the rift, and enter from there. Now get over here!”

He leaned past the edge of the rift and fired down the aisle toward the incoming Triceratops robots, laying down covering fire.

Julian vaulted across, using his jumpjets for added speed, and landed beside him. Jones got up, but then the lower part of his ballistic shield failed, and he took two hits in rapid succession from the far side of the Quonset, where the flanking robots resided.

He collapsed. “Ugh!”

Jason ducked behind the rift, and with Julian, redirected his fire toward the flankers. Together with Jones, they managed to take down one robot that was out in the open, but there was still another hiding behind the far edge that emerged intermittently to fire.

“Jones, get up!” Jason said. “Get over here!”

“I can’t,” Jones said. “My feet are blown out.”

“Then we’ll drag you,” Jason said. He glanced at Julian. “Cover me!”

Jason was about to race across, but then Jones shouted: “Wait!”

“What…” Jason said.

“Someone has to stay anyway,” Jones said.

“No,” Jason said. “I’m dragging you back.”

“You know I’m right,” Jones said. “If those grenades don’t pierce the energy fields, I’ll keep firing until I do. And I’ll destroy them myself.”

“You’ll be stranded,” Jason said.

“I know that,” Jones said.

“We’ll just place more energy grenades,” Jason said.

“Oh really, when we don’t have any more?” Jones said.

“I’ll go back through the rift, and get more from the others,” Jason said. But he knew Jones was right. Still, he couldn’t help but fight. He hated giving up.

Hated losing someone.

“There’s no time,” Jones said. “Every moment you delay, more of those bioweapons flow through to Earth. The clones already have their hands full I’m sure. Get back there and help them out. Don’t let an entire army through.”

“He’s right,” Julian said. “The longer we delay, the less chance any of us return.”

“Go,” Jones said. “Let me die with some dignity, at least.”

“But it’s needless,” Jason said weakly. He activated the countdown as he spoke, setting it to one minute.

Jones must have detected the countdown signal, because he said: “Thank you. Good luck.”

Jason said nothing as he retreated to the far side of the rift. He had to harden himself. That was all he could do.

Goodbye, my friend.

It was like a part of himself was dying. How could it not be, when Jones was his mind twin?

Jason reached the far side of the rift, and then peered past. The bioweapons flooded through the center, leaving enough room for him and Julian to enter from the sides.

Keeping his ballistic shield between himself and the bioweapons, he rounded the perimeter of that tear in spacetime and stepped through the rift, almost cheek by jowl with the Lightning Spitters beside him.

19

Jason emerged into the bright sunlight of Earth to find the trees trampled before him. The bioweapons raced across the forest toward the construction site. The two Taras had abandoned their task and had instead combined with their other clones so that John and Jerry fought as Cataphracts against the Lightning Spitters, which would have otherwise dwarfed them. Maureen, Iris and Cheyanne fought beside them. Or rather, Cheyanne fought above them, her dragonfly-like wings a blur like her twin swords.

Jason stumbled forward as something slammed into him from behind. He glanced at his rearview camera feed and realized it was Julian.

Lightning cracked beside him and fresh red glows appeared along the inside of his ballistic shield. A heavy weight struck the shield a moment later, and he realized one of the Lightning Spitters had landed on it. The sheer mass of the thing knocked him over, and he was pinned to the ground.

Julian’s sword slammed outward, cutting off the creature’s head, and Julian kicked the carcass off him.

Jason stood up, firing his energy and lightning weapons. The bolts struck another Lightning Spitter, tearing open its head. Julian fired at the next one beside it.

They continued firing like that until their weapons overheated, and then fought back to back with their swords as the Lightning Spitters surrounded them. Though Jason had accelerated his time sense, it was frustrating, because his body moved far slower than his mind, and wasn’t able to keep up. He ended up reverting his time sense closer to normal to satisfy his impatience.

The bioweapons continued to flow from the rift in an endless line of tentacles and bodies. One of the Triceratops emerged now as well, and Jason ducked behind one of the dead carcasses in front of him as the behemoth unleashed its deadly beam.

“Watch my back,” he told Julian.

He retracted the sword and shield so he could use his hands, then lifted the dead body and ran toward the Triceratops. He swung the body at other Lightning Spitters in his path, stunning them, and when he reached the giant robot he began pummeling its energy shield with the body. The force field flashed with each impact, shredding the skin of the bioweapon he used as a weapon.

Behind him, Julian swung his sword in a maelstrom of hits, downing any Lightning Spitters that got too close. He used up his ballistic shield to protect himself and Jason from the constant lighting attacks hurled by those creatures. The air pealed with thunderclaps.

His energy and plasma weapons recharged, so he unleashed them between each strike until the Triceratops’ shield went down, and Jason was battering raw metal. Finally the behemoth went down in a broken heap.

Jason dropped the body and extended his sword and shield to engage the Lightning Spitters with Julian.

He glanced at his system clock after dodging a leap from one of the creatures. “The grenades should have detonated by now.”

Julian cut off the tentacles hanging from a Lightning Spitter’s head. “Wasn’t enough to destroy the shields, apparently.”

“We’re going to have to go back in there,” Jason said.

He downed his latest foe, and then turned toward the rift. It wasn’t far. A few paces, and he’d be back on the other side.

I shouldn’t have left Jones. I have a chance to rectify that.

And then the rift collapsed.

No.

“He did it.” Julian was firing his energy cannon now, since the weapon had recharged.

“Yeah,” Jason said, feeling sick to his stomach. Shouldn’t have left him.

He turned about and swung his sword in a rage, cutting everything in his path. He trampled the trees and dead bodies beneath him. He engaged his weapons whenever the charge was strong enough.

With Julian at his side, they continued fighting, slowly carving their way back toward the others.

He connected Tanis. “Can you afford a few bombs to thin out this herd?”

“We dropped a few already before you arrived,” Tanis replied. “But we can dispatch a couple more, yes. Precision strike variants.”

“Perfect.”

The bombs dropped not far in front of him, chewing into the bioweapons that separated Jason and Julian from the others. Gory body parts rained down from above, bouncing off their mechs with heavy thuds. The way forward was relatively clear by then; most of the remaining bioweapons were clustered around the War Forgers near the construction site ahead. They’d been too close to the defenders to safely target.

Jason and Julian cut their way forward, and finally rejoined the other two Cataphracts after wading through the dead bodies that surrounded them. After arriving, they fought in a tight circle with the other Cataphracts, while the smaller units of Maeran and Iris huddled between the legs and ballistic shields of the Cataphracts, striking out with their drones and energy whips, respectively, while Cheyanne weaved in and out from above to wreak havoc with her twirling swords; she occasionally launched her shockwave attack, but it wasn’t powerful enough to do more than stun any nearby Lightning Spitters.

The ballistic shields of the Cataphracts were damaged across the board, but sometimes they were able to activate their energy fields to protect themselves from unexpected attacks. Around them a mountain of dead bioweapon bodies was forming, some of them piled up against the energy field of the construction site. The Lightning Spitters moved or ripped through those bodies to get at them.

After ten grueling minutes, the Mind Refurbs finally slew the last of the bioweapons. On the broken and trampled trees around them lay the carcasses of the Lightning Spitters.

“Where’s Jones?” Cheyanne asked.

“We lost him,” Jason replied.

“And Lori 3!” Lori said.

“And a Tara…” Tara said.

“We lost all the clones that were part of him,” Jason agreed. “We’ll miss them. We’ll make these Link pay.”

Some of the bioweapons still twitched, and a few even crawled away, barely alive. Julian waded through the bodies to the latter few, and impaled them in turn, killing them.

“That’s for Jones,” Julian said.

John and Jerry decombined so that Tara 2 could work on extracting the teleportation device from Tara 5 once more.

While they worked, Jason zoomed in on the first shield generator they’d destroyed on the eastern side, and confirmed that it was still offline. Though the repair drones had made a troubling amount of progress—it looked like it was half finished.

“You’re going to have to work faster on the final two bombs,” Jason told the two Tara clones. “They’ve almost repaired the first generator.”

“Shouldn’t be too much longer on this one,” Tara 2 said.

In twenty minutes, Tara 2 had another teleportation bomb ready.

The War Forgers and their clones hurried toward the western side of the construction site, and to the second-last generator that resided behind the energy shield.

“Aria 2, you know what to do,” Jason said.

Aria 2 escorted Tara 2 to the perimeter of the force field, and then placed an energy grenade in the teleportation device. She engaged the teleport, and it exploded next to the shield generator.

Jason let off a short burst to confirm that the overall force field was still active, and then the team members made their way toward the south side, where the last of the generators resided.

“When we get to the next generator, Tara 2, you get to give up your teleportation device this time,” Jason said.

“Why can’t the original Tara give up hers?” Tara 2 complained. “Talk about preferential treatment.”

“She’s right,” Tara said. “I can donate my teleportation device just as easily as she can.”

“No,” Jason said. “Tara 2, you’re giving up yours.”

“I see how it is,” Tara 2 said. “Just because I’m not in your personal harem, and we’re not having sex, you’re—”

“It’s not about that,” Jason said, feeling a little embarrassed. “I don’t want to lose my Cataphract’s teleport ability.” That was mostly true. Though he did feel a little inclined to favor Tara, because she was part of his coterie, like her clone had said.

“That’s fine, then,” Tara 2 said. “No really, it is.”

Jason decided to keep his mouth shut. Best not to spur them on.

The War Forgers and their clones reached the southern section of the construction site.

Within, Jason spotted alien drones working frantically to raise some sort of barricade around the final remaining shield generator to protect it from the explosion they knew was coming.

“You’re going to have to make this next extraction super quick,” Jason told Tara 5.

“Will do.” Tara 5 knelt next to Tara 2, who had turned around to offer the upper back of her Shadow Hawk mech.

“You’d think these aliens would open up a rift directly inside the shield somewhere,” John said. “To send in more generators.”

“Rifts don’t go through these types of shields, I’d suspect,” Jason said. “But that does make me wonder.” He connected Tanis. “Admiral, are your bombers ready?”

“They’ve been circling overhead ever since you knocked out the defense turrets,” Tanis said.

“Good, because we’re almost done here,” he said. “The Link might try something before we place the final bomb.”

“You think they’ll drop the shield early?” Tanis asked.

“They might,” Jason said. “To send in more shield generators.”

“All right, I’ll have the bomber AIs keep an eye out,” Tanis said. “But do let me know if you notice a change before I do.”

“Stay on the line,” Jason said.

“I’m all ears,” Tanis told him.

Tara 5 finished creating the teleport bomb from Tara 2’s parts, and secured an energy grenade inside.

Jason nodded at Aria 5, and the latter’s Dominator mech accompanied Tara 5 to the perimeter of the construction site.

As Tara 5 knelt to place the bomb, sure enough the shield went down. Though he couldn’t see it either way, he knew because most of the drones that were building the barricade suddenly swerved away from the shield generator to attack her. They passed straight through where the shield was supposed to be.

Tara 5 dropped the bomb to swat the incoming drones.

“Tanis, the shield is down!” Jason sent. “Drop the bombs!”

Jason heard the keening of falling bombs as he dashed forward to aid Aria 5 and Tara 5. They were still swatting at the drones, which swooped in to attack them with the lasers they were equipped with to augment their 3D printing capabilities. He halted, realizing he was too big to get close at the moment, and instead targeted different drones with all of his weapons. His tracking sensors activated; they fired repeatedly, programmed not to catch the friendlies in their line of fire. The other War Forgers opened fire as well, and the drones dropped in rapid, sizzling masses.

Aria 5 swatted one of the drones toward the construction site.

Before the careening object hit the ground, it bounced away from the energy shield.

“It’s reactivated!” Lori said.

The keening grew louder as the bombs closed with the world killer. There were so many high-pitched sounds; glancing up, he counted at least thirty incoming bombs. The AIs had likely dropped their entire payload.

If those bombs hit the shield, their gone… and who knows how far away the next group of bombers are.

“Tara 5, engage the teleportation bomb!” Jason said.

She swatted a drone and then remotely activated the teleportation device.

The bomb teleported inside and detonated. The half-finished barricade wasn’t enough to protect the shield generator, and the force field flashed one final time before vanishing.

Jason unleashed an experimental shot at the world killer inside. His energy bolt struck the metal exterior, melting a spherical hole.

“It’s offline!” Jason said. “Get back, War Forgers!”

Jason retracted his sword and shield and scooped up Aria 5 and Tara 5 like dolls, then turned away from the construction site.

The bombs struck the world killer behind him.

Jason was sent flying from the shockwaves produced by the explosions. Shrapnel sprayed the backside of his mech. By his calculations, he was thrown at least two hundred meters from the site.

He landed hard, releasing Aria 5 and Tara 5 before he hit the ground.

“Oof!” Tara 5 said.

Jason was surrounded by darkness. He crawled to his feet.

He still couldn’t see anything for all the black smoke that surrounded him. He activated his LIDAR feed, and directed the constituent photons toward the construction site. The white wireframes generated by the LIDAR showed only a blast crater. There was literally nothing left of the donut structure.

“So, it’s done,” Lori said. “Does that mean we can decombine now? My back’s getting kind of stiff.”

Jason chuckled, filled with relief. He initiated the decombine, and their weapons rolled down the tracks that emerged, and Sophie’s micro machines broke away, reducing the size of the different components, reversing the process that had created the Cataphract.

In a few moments, the six mechs stumbled apart. The ground was uneven below, courtesy of the trees that had broken away, leaving only trunks. That, and the crumpled bodies of the slain bioweapons.

The dust was beginning to clear, and he could see the smoke rising from the ruins of the crater, all that remained of the construction site.

“I hope the humans appreciate this,” Tara said beside him.

“Probably not,” Aria said.

Jason stared at the smoke, and couldn’t help the emotion he felt when the sky began to clear, and the sun peaked forth once more. The sun. Shining through the darkness. He would have cried tears of joy if he wasn’t a robot. As it was, his avatar was probably choking up at that very moment.

He calmed himself, and then allowed his avatar to smile.

“We did it,” Jason said. “We finished what we came to do. Now it’s up to the teams in orbit. If Earth falls, no one can say the War Forgers didn’t do their part.”

With that, he lowered himself to the dirt, and slumped in exhaustion. Not physical exhaustion, but mental.

“You okay?” Lori asked, sitting beside him in her Stalker mech.

He reached out, and gripped her metal hand in his own. “I’ve never been better.”

Her avatar grinned widely, and blinked as the tears fell down her virtual cheeks.

20

Jain and the others proceeded deeper into the dark belly of the whale.

It seemed like he had passed Mark’s remains only a few moments ago, when in reality it had been at least twenty minutes. All that time, he kept waiting for the next attack, but none came. There were no micro machines this deep in the ship. Nor any robots or other anti-boarding party units. No defense turrets emerged from the deck or overhead. It was almost as if the Link had designed this vessel under the assumption that no one would ever get through that shield, and the few anti-boarding party defenses present had been added mostly as an afterthought.

He glanced at the timer he’d setup before the mission started. There was only an hour left until the earthquakes began. The world killer would already be in orbit above North America by then, and would be firing its concentric pulses of energy to heat the Earth’s mantle. Time was of the essence.

They rushed through those corridors, moving at speeds no humans would have ever been able to sustain for more than seconds at a time. If there had been atmosphere aboard, the clangs of their passage would have reverberated throughout the area. External cameras would have recorded them as blurs.

And yet, despite their speed, the ship was proving as huge as it had seemed on the outside: a labyrinth of twisting blue corridors. And they were still well away from their target.

Jain had activated his LIDAR feed hours ago to supplant the dim glow from those bulkheads. It was simply too dark to proceed otherwise.

Eric had shared the map with the rest of them, along with their target, so Jain and the others could follow along as the Bolt Eater took that winding path toward the heart of the ship.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Crusher said while they jogged.

“How can we be lost?” Eric said. “You have the map right before your eyes.”

“Then why is it taking so long?” Crusher said.

“It’s a big ship,” Eric said. “Remember when we climbed Everest?”

“You climbed Everest?” Sheila asked in awe.

“Well, no,” Crusher said. “Only in a VR simulation. Eric said it was for ‘team building.’ But he had it set up to throw the most hellish conditions at us. It was all bright sunny skies at first, but by the end of it, we were in the middle of a snowstorm with wind gusts upwards of eighty miles an hour. Not fun.”

“She cheated and disabled her pain sense,” Frogger commented.

“So did you!” Crusher said.

Frogger shrugged. “I was there only for the team building. Not the pain.”

“Pain is part of team building,” Marlborough said.

“Sarge was one of those who kept his pain sense at full,” Frogger said.

“Anyway, my point is, it took a long time to climb Everest,” Eric said. “This is going to be no different.” He paused. “If it helps, feel free to disable your emotions.”

“I’m not that weak,” Crusher said.

“I never said you were weak,” Eric told her.

They continued to argue.

At first Jain thought it was just the stress of the mission that was bubbling to the surface, and causing them to butt heads, but their charged back and forth seemed to have a slight sexual dynamic. Jain decided Eric must be sleeping with her.

And then he had a realization.

Bambi had probably been his lover, too.

Well, it wasn’t as if any of that mattered at the moment. Though it did explain the emotional outburst Eric had displayed upon her death.

The pair stopped arguing shortly after that, and the team continued in silence. The vibrations of their passage would have announced their presence to any troops stationed nearby if the AI’s hidden cameras hadn’t spotted them, but still they experienced no resistance.

And then, twenty minutes from the target, the long-expected attack finally came.

“Drop!” Eric suddenly said.

Jain dropped; he was just behind Crusher and Eric, who opened fire with their plasma rifles from their prone position. The green energy channels lit up the bulkheads.

Jain peered past them with his rifle scope. He spotted two bulges crouched on the deck ahead. They were outlined in white wireframes, thanks to his LIDAR. On their backs were what appeared to be a pair of weapon turrets.

He centered his cross hairs over one of targets, and squeezed the trigger. It promptly collapsed. The second one fell beside it. He fired a few more times for good measure.

“They’re down!” Eric announced.

“Forward!” Jain said. They couldn’t stay where they were: there was nowhere to hide out in the open like that. “Take cover behind the bodies!”

He expected Eric to contest him, but he and Crusher instantly got up and raced toward the fallen aliens.

Jain and Sheila scrambled upright and joined them. Jain kept his upper body bent low.

Ahead, the blurs that were Eric and Crusher leaped to the deck and slid across the slick surface before coming to a halt next to the targets, which had been reduced to lifeless heaps of metal.

Jain and Sheila likewise dove, sliding into Eric and Crusher. The others piled into them from behind.

Eric lifted his rifle scope past the first pile of debris. A pair of blue energy beams came from somewhere ahead and ate into the air above him before striking the bulkhead not far behind. The beams slid downward until hitting the shielding robot. The energy was delayed for a few seconds, until the beams ate through the metal, and then continued downward, toward Eric. The Bolt Eater rolled to the side, slamming against Crusher. Jain likewise slid against the closest bulkhead, as did the others who lay flat on the floor behind him, with all of them moving out of the way of that descending beam.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a David Copperfield trick gone awry!” Frogger quipped.

“David who?” Gavin said.

Jain lifted his rifle past the remains of the closest robot and aimed his scope at the latest threat. He spotted two more figures highlighted on the LIDAR feed ahead. They were similar to the first two the team had eliminated, but now that he was closer, he could make out more details. The robots were essentially cubes on treads, with a pair of weapon turrets mounted on top.

He fired at the first one just as it turned its turrets toward him. Sheila hijacked his aim, syncing her laser with his, so that her beam hit at the same time. Eric and Crusher followed suite, and in seconds that one was reduced to a melted pile of slag.

The second one opened fire, and Jain ducked.

The two beams ate into the metal shielding above him, and forced him to roll away as it swept down. Behind him, Gavin rose to fire.

“Stay down!” Jain said.

But it was too late: the beams instantly changed course, swinging upward to smash into his face. Gavin dropped. His status indicator turned red: half his face and head had melted away.

Growling, Jain lifted his weapon as soon as the beams stopped and he released his lasers in a rapid fire staccato. He also threw his second to last energy grenade, and when it hit, the robot exploded in a satisfying display of twisted metal.

Jain scanned the passageway beyond. “Seems clear.” He kept sweeping his scope back and forth, searching the passageway, trying to forget that he’d just lost another of his men.

It wasn’t working.

This hurts so much.

He was experiencing the same feelings as with the loss of Mark all over again. Seeing Gavin die as an android felt much worse than losing him as a ship. His perfect face had been blown clean away.

Jain forced himself to look at his friend. Forced himself to see the consequences of not properly protecting his men.

But Gavin stood up, when he should have stayed down. It was his fault.

That didn’t make the burden any less to bear.

“You okay?” Sheila asked him.

“Had better days,” he replied.

“We all have,” she said.

“Let’s go!” Eric said, standing. “We’re almost there.”

“Wait, do you feel that?” Crusher said.

“What?” Eric asked.

Jain felt it then. The deck beneath him vibrated. With each passing second, the vibrations became stronger.

“Uh, something’s coming,” Dickson said.

“Termites?” Medeia asked.

“No,” Jain said. “Gotta be a lot bigger than termites for us to feel vibrations like these.”

A red glow came from ahead. He zoomed in. The glow grew in intensity as something approached from a side corridor.

An instant later bright red shapes emerged from around the bend. They were quadrupeds of some kind, or perhaps bipeds that moved on all fours when running. They had scaly bodies, two thin legs, two long arms topped by claws, a long, spiked tail, and a head that was an elongated oblong.

The creatures left visible indentations in the deck where their feet touched, given Jain the impression that they were very hot.

He opened fire with his laser, striking the lead in the head. It merely shook that oblong thing, as if shaking it off, and continued its approach. Eric and Crusher engaged their plasma beams, to greater effect. Both their beams struck the lead creature, and its head exploded.

“These look like they’re from Aliens or something!” Frogger said.

“If xenomorphs were from hell, maybe!” Eric said, firing at the next creature. “I have a feeling these things are very hot. Probably don’t want to be letting them touch you!”

“Probably not!” Crusher agreed as she unleashed her weapon at the same creature.

“How do the Link store these things in their ships if they’re so hot?” Frogger fired a plasma beam.

“I suspect the Glow Bugs can turn their heat on at will, or by some action,” Sheila said. “Like running at their top speeds!”

“Glow Bugs?” Frogger said. “That’s the worst possible name for them. Xeno Demons would be better!”

“Shut up and mow them down!” Eric said.

Jain fell back to allow those with plasma beams to assume a position closer to the front. The team members stayed crouched beneath the robots they’d destroyed, just in case the incoming xenos had any ranged weapons.

The passageway soon filled with glowing corpses as the Bolt Eaters mowed down the creatures with their plasma rifles. The deck began to sag in places as the dead bodies melted through.

“Careful,” Jain said. “The Link could be deploying these weapons to render this passageway unusable. We might not be able to reach the target if we let those bodies melt through the floor.”

“That’s a good point!” Eric said. “One of the conduits from the plasma core is just below. We won’t be able to cross it if the floor goes. We’re going to have to push our way forward before it fails!”

“I don’t see that we have any choice,” Jain agreed.

Eric and the Bolt Eaters got up, and rushed forward while firing their plasmas rifles. The surviving Void Warriors followed behind them, guarding their rear. Jain allowed Sheila and himself to fall back to the very rear.

Jain stepped between the glowing bodies of the xenos. The floor definitely felt hot to the touch. Heat energy usually dissipated slower in the void because it could only travel by radiation. However, since the dead touched the cold surface of the metal underneath them, their molecules were able to transfer thermal energy directly to the deck, bleeding it off faster.

He accidentally stepped on the edge of one of the fallen xenos’ thighs, and the heat melted part of his boot.

“Ah, damn it!” he said.

“You all right?” Sheila asked.

“Yeah, gotta pay attention,” he replied.

Eric and the Bolt Eaters continued firing at the blocking xenos, bringing them down.

The floor collapsed behind Jain, and he spun about to catch Sheila. Below, a bright green beam ate up the air where the plasma conduit passed.

He pulled her up, and she gave him a tight hug. “Thank you.”

Jain turned around to continue weaving past the superheated bodies.

“My weapon has overheated!” Eric said, falling back.

The plasma beam weapons of the other Void Warriors in the lead also began to overheat from the relentless onslaught, and they fell back in turn until only Dickson and Marlborough were left firing. And then their weapons failed.

They stood their ground as the next group of xenos reached them. Dickson and Marlborough activated their bayonet extensions and stabbed at the first two and killed them, but their blades quickly melted away. Then they tried to use their weapons as clubs against the next xenos—they moved so fast that their hands were blurs, but the creatures mostly ignored the blows and swatted them aside like dolls. Dickson’s android crashed into the bulkhead beside him, while Marlborough was hurled backward into the other Void Warriors.

Jain upped his time sense and reality froze around him. He examined the blueprints fervently, looking for a way out of this. But there wasn’t one. They were trapped.

And then he realized the solution was staring him right in the face.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but according to these blueprints, there’s another plasma conduit running just behind the right bulkhead of this passage,” Jain said.

The others would have instantly upgraded to match his time sense when they received his message, thanks to the sync header packet that went with the transmission.

“You’re right,” Eric said. “So?”

“Look at the shape of that conduit, relative to the region,” Jain said. “It’s similar to the kickback design the Mimics use for their own conduits. I’m sure you’ve seen it on your Banthar ship, too.”

“Again, so?” Eric sounded unimpressed.

“Unlike the conduit running immediately below the deck, this one will be under high pressure,” Jain explained.

“Ah,” Eric said.

“We poke a few holes…” Jain sent.

“It certainly might slow them down,” Eric replied after a moment. “But I doubt it will stop them.”

“We speed walk past them while they’re distracted,” Jain said.

“You mean utilize Bullet Time?” Frogger said.

“Is that what you seniors call it?” Sheila asked.

“Speed walk, Bullet Time, however you want to describe it,” Jain said.

“It’s worth a try,” Eric said. “But your guys are going to have to do the hole poking, as our weapons are still overheated. And you’ll have to be very particular about where you place the holes… we’ll need the bodies of these xenos to act as shields against the plasma. Our android exteriors are strong, but not that strong.”

“Void Warriors,” Jain said. “Sync your lasers to mine. It’s time to show these creatures why we chose our namesake.”

21

Jain waited until the sync indicators on his HUD turned green. Then he stepped down his time sense a few notches, but still kept it accelerated so that reality flowed just fast enough for him to aim his laser rifle.

Dickson was still at the front of the group, where his android had been hurled against the deck. The lead xeno was currently in the process of pouncing on him.

Jain targeted the bulkhead next to that lead bioweapon and fired; the lasers of Sheila, Medeia, and Cranston activated as well, targeting the same location. Together, the four laser beams easily penetrated the bulkhead and the plasma conduit beyond. The breach caused the metal to tear open as the pressurized contents spilled into the passageway.

The creature screamed as the plasma struck its side, dissolving part of its exterior. Dickson rolled out of the way and clambered to his feet with his android speed.

“Let’s go!” Dickson said.

Jain amped up his servomotor output, then he and the Void Warriors shoved past the Bolt Eaters to take the lead. He charged past the stunned xeno, which still screamed in pain.

Jain drilled several more holes in the wall with the synced lasers as he ran; he aimed next to each xeno ahead of him in turn, and the spewing contents flowed into the creatures, distracting them. They moved so slowly compared to the androids, it was almost comical. Still, sometimes those tails twisted to strike at him, and claws reached out to grab him; without the distraction of the deadly plasma flowing into their bodies, he had no doubt that some of them would have been successful. But as it was, he easily dodged any strike attempts.

“One of the advantages of not having a Cicada!” Dickson said. “These smaller androids are a helluva lot faster!”

Some of the xenos were closer to the middle of the passageway, and Jain had to squeeze past them. He dove outright beneath the legs of a bigger one, whose hulking body took up almost the entire passage. The hot bodies scalded his exterior wherever he touched them, but he kept going.

And then he was past. The corridor was clear ahead. The others joined him, and they kept running. The xenos continued to scream behind them; they struggled to get away from the plasma, and those that escaped its deadly venting didn’t pursue, but instead collapsed to the deck in pain. Their superheated bodies sunk into the metallic surface as it melted underneath them.

When the bioweapons were well behind him, he lowered his servomotors to their default output, and reverted his time sense to normal, because both were big drains on his batteries. He had to let them self-regenerate for a while. The others likewise switched to their usual operating output.

“Well, that was fun,” Sheila said.

“Hanging out with you always is,” Jain told her.

“Quit flirting!” Frogger said.

Eric and Crusher took the lead once more, and they continued forward at a jog.

Jain let himself fall back so that he ran next to Cranston. He was worried about his friend. Cranston had been quiet ever since the earlier incident.

“You all right?” he asked on a private channel.

“Hanging there,” Cranston said. “I mean, hanging in there.”

Jain nodded. “We’re getting tired. Mentally.”

Cranston was quiet for a moment.

“A part of me hopes I’ll die while I’m down here,” he said finally. “That way, when I’m restored, I won’t have this memory.” He shook his head. “I can’t get her face out of my head. The way she looked at me, before I squeezed the trigger. The amusement, like she thought I was playing some kind of a practical joke. She was so trusting. So damn trusting. And then I melted half of her head away.”

“She still has a backup,” Jain said.

“A backup,” Cranston said. He almost spat the words. “What we really need is a time machine. So I could go back and prevent myself from ever getting my mind scanned.” He glanced at Jain and smiled weakly. “Just kidding.”

Jain nodded. “Sometimes I don’t want to be a Mind Refurb either. I never asked for this. None of us did. Well, we volunteered I suppose, but we were naive, didn’t really know what to expect. We thought it was something that would never affect our lives. At the time, we only had some vague notion of the consequences of our actions. We thought, hell, we’re just creating copies… we’ll continue to live out our days as we know them. And our original human selves did just that. But we could have never realized how real our copies would become. You and I, we’re the real Jain and Cranston now. We’re our own legacy. And we’re living it.”

Cranston fell silent once more as he jogged beside Jain.

Then he smiled.

“Saving the world, like we do best,” Cranston said.

“That’s right,” Jain told him.

“Let’s kick some ass,” Cranston said.

“Oh, I intend to,” Jain said.

* * *

Eric led the charge. This was his battle. He was going to save the world, once again.

Humanity, and Mind Refurb kind, they really owe me. Big time.

He dismissed the thoughts with a grim smile.

Haven’t saved the world yet.

He reached the entrance to the target compartment. The door was sealed.

“Okay,” Eric said. “This is it. Behind this door resides the reactor responsible for shield generation. A well-placed plasma grenade will take it out. We peel open its metal exterior, toss the grenade, and get the hell out. That’s the plan.”

“There’s a lot of room for resistance in there,” Jain commented.

Eric glanced at the map. The reactor was located on the opposite end of the compartment. Definitely room for the enemy to make a final stand. He had no idea what the Link might have waiting for them inside.

“Get ready for breaching!” Eric pressed himself against the bulkhead next to the door. Crusher assumed a position directly opposite. Behind them, the team members alternately lined up.

“Breach in progress!” Eric fired his plasma weapon point blank at the door. The metal only took a few shots to turn from red hot to white. The final shot melted the white section away entirely, forming a small hole. Eric fired a few more shots, enlarging that hole until it was big enough to fit an android.

Then he ceased firing. And he waited. He stared at the hole, waiting for something to attack. Anything.

But so far, there was only calm.

Eric glanced at Crusher, who nodded.

Eric began to pie the opening with his rifle, when a huge grappling hook of some kind slammed through the door and into the opposite wall. No, it wasn’t a grappling hook. It was something organic. Like the thick appendage of some giant octopus. Where the appendage struck the wall, smaller tentacles fanned outward across the surface, curling backward, toward the Mind Refurbs.

They were already opening fire. Eric joined them, unleashing hell on those things.

Before he could react, that huge appendage released the bulkhead, and curved backward, smashing into his body. It wrapped around him, and pulled him through the breach and into the vast compartment beyond. He still couldn’t see what held him, because his back was toward it, and the tentacle blocked the rear camera hidden in his hair. He was drawn upward, toward the far ceiling, but never made it. The tentacles tightened, crushing his android body.

His last thought before his body split in two was: oh shit.

Reality blinked.

He was back inside the virtual reality environment aboard the Bethunia—his mind had switched control to the next closest vessel linked to his consciousness.

Around him lay the virtual deck of the sailing ship. None of the Bolt Eaters lounged nearby, of course. How could they, when they had transferred their consciousness into the androids?

He turned around to gaze at the stars behind the ship’s railing. The half dome of Earth floated just above. His gaze was drawn to the world killer, which hovered above the North American continent. Concentric pulses of energy launched from the donut hole in the center, and into the Earth’s crust below.

“Are we too late?” he wondered.

A series of flashes drew his attention to a space battle nearby.

More Link vessels had jumped in. Teleporters, Battlestars, Trees, Minelayers. Hundreds of them. Slate led the Banthar space navy against the enemy, helping the Earth defense forces and the Tyrnari ships fend off the latest flyby.

The Void Warrior ships joined the battle as well, thanks to the copies of their Accomps manning the respective vessels. Eric had no one operating his ship, however. Autonomous subsystems kept the ship operational, of course, but otherwise the ship’s AI core was an empty shell waiting to respond to his remote commands. And so the Bethunia had idled on the sidelines all this time, letting the battle take place, and doing nothing to help.

That’s about to change.

“But even if we get those shields down, it won’t be easy to disable that ship, not with so many Link ships to protect it,” Eric said.

“Yes,” Dee agreed. There was no one else present, so his Accomp assumed he was talking to her. Maybe he was.

“Slate, I’m back,” Eric sent.

Stunned silence. Then:

“If your ass is back, then how come the worm killer still has its shields?” Slate sent.

“The world killer?” Eric said. “My android died. We’re close, though. We’re right outside the generator room. There’s a little bit of resistance. Nothing the others can’t handle.” He hoped.

“Well, it’s probably a good thing you’ve returned,” Slate said. “We need all the help we can get right now!”

Eric connected with Admiral Tanis. “I’m back.”

“Tell me the shield is down,” Tanis sent.

“Sorry,” Eric said. “My android ran into some trouble in there, and I had to exit the scene early.”

“The quakes are getting pretty bad on Earth,” Tanis said. “I’m not sure how much longer humanity can hold out.”

“So the quakes have started already?” Eric asked. He glanced at his timer. There was still twenty minutes left. “I thought we had more time.”

“Apparently, you were wrong about when they’d start,” Tanis said. “They began about twenty minutes ago.”

Eric squeezed his eyes shut for several moments.

We failed.

No. Not yet.

He opened his eyes, and gazed at the distant battle. He accelerated toward it. “Well, if it’s any consolation, before I left, we were right at the shield generator room. We’ve almost got it. Trust me.”

“I do,” Tanis said. “We could probably use you the most here, to shore up the defenses.” On the overhead map, a waypoint appeared.

Eric directed the Bethunia toward that waypoint, where the fighting seemed the most intense above Earth.

“We’re going to win this,” Eric sent Slate.

“I appreciate the positive vibes,” Slate replied. “But it’s going to take more than good feelings to end this in our favor.”

Unfortunately, Eric knew Slate was right. It was out of his hands now.

So much for saving the world on my own.

Though he supposed it was about time he let someone else take a stab at it.

Good luck, my Bolt Eaters. And to you, too, Void Warriors. If anyone can do this, it’s you guys.

22

Jain and the others had rushed inside the expansive compartment in an effort to save Eric, only to find themselves face to face with the biggest creature they’d ever seen. It looked like a tree trunk covered in slimy skin, with huge tentacles in places of branches, their tips covered in even smaller tentacles. It resided directly in front of the much-vaunted reactor responsible for generating the vessel’s impenetrable shield. And it wouldn’t move, no matter how many energy grenades, or laser and plasma attacks they directed against it.

One of those giant appendages slammed down and Jain dodged it. As it hit, the smaller tentacles launched toward him. He sliced at them with the bayonet attachment of his rifle while firing laser bursts at the same time.

Darts embedded in his back as another nearby tentacle launched barbs from slits at the same time.

“I’m detecting the release of a corrosive liquid from the darts,” Xander announced.

“That explains the pain!” Jain said between gritted teeth. The feeling became so intense he was forced to lower his pain sense. Thankfully it soon subsided as the liquid amount of toxic liquid dissolved as much of the surrounding metal as it could.

Sheila suddenly smashed into him. As he hit the deck with her, he realized she’d forced him out of the way of another tentacle that had struck out toward him.

He fired past her body as the smaller tentacles reached for him, and she rolled off of him and joined in the attack.

They scrambled to their feet, and joined the others, who had gathered to fight in a small cluster nearby.

They’d lost Dickson, in addition to Eric. He wasn’t sure how much longer the rest of them would last, not against this.

It was hopeless.

They weren’t operating at their heightened time sense, they couldn’t—their power cells were too low. No, they had to fight this thing in ordinary time.

We might as well be human.

Human.

Jain had almost forgotten what it was like.

I never gave up when I was human. When things were so much more difficult. When death was so very near. I have all the advantages of a machine in this body. I’ll be damned if I give up now.

And so he fought with renewed purpose.

The group was forced to separate whenever one or more of those huge tentacles came at them. They also repeatedly took barb impacts whenever those slits got too close.

Crusher dashed forward, and tossed an energy grenade toward the base of that big trunk. She retreated as it detonated. The impact carved a fresh blast crater into the creature, and it howled, but did not let up its attack. In terms of relative damage, the hole she’d made was equivalent to cutting off the toe of a lion.

“That was my last!” Crusher said.

Jain still had one energy grenade left, but he was saving that to use on the reactor itself. There had to be a way to get around that creature to reach the reactor. Yet, he couldn’t see one. Unless…

Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.

He dodged the latest strike, and then glanced at the overhead map. There was another compartment that bordered the reactor room. Its far bulkhead was adjacent to the reactor itself.

“We have to retrograde,” Jain said. He sliced at a bunch of tentacles that tried to wrap around him. “Check your maps… see that room to the north? Its south wall borders the reactor. We cut through the wall, the reactor will be right in front of us.”

“And what if that room is guarded as well?” Sheila asked.

“It’s a lot smaller,” Jain said. “If it’s guarded, the resistance will be a lot weaker.” He hoped. “And if not, then we’re screwed. Now retreat!”

Tentacles came in once more, and the group dodged; as soon as the appendages receded, Jain raced toward the entrance, leading the way. He fired behind him with his laser rifle, while the others launched laser and plasma attacks.

He reached the doorway and dove through.

He raced down the passageway, followed by the others. Behind them, a tentacle slammed through the entrance in pursuit, though it hit the opposite bulkhead harmlessly.

Jain paused before a left turn on the way to the room in question. He peered around the corner. The way was blocked by those box-shaped robots on treads. They unleashed their plasma beams when they saw his head, and Jain was forced to retreat.

“Not this way,” he said.

He led them back the way they had come, and raced past the open doorway to the shield room. The tentacled creature inside noticed their passage, and unleashed yet another appendage attack. It narrowly missed Marlborough, who passed by on drag. The Sarge gave the smaller tentacles that reached for him a good walloping with his rifle before running on.

Using the map, Jain took an alternate route, and then doubled back. They met no resistance, and in moments reached the compartment that bordered the reactor room. The door was sealed.

“Let’s hope there isn’t another tentacle-on-a-stick hiding behind these doors,” Sheila said.

Jain stepped back to allow Crusher and Frogger to breach the door. The rest of the team spread out behind them on either side of the entrance.

The plasma beams of the two breachers made quick work of the door, and they ducked behind the edges when the metal disintegrated.

Frogger pied the entrance.

“Clear!” he said a moment later.

He and Crusher entered at the same time, with Crusher going high, and Frogger low.

Jain followed just behind them.

But the room seemed unprotected.

“It’s a storage compartment of some kind, for processed ores,” Crusher said.

It contained bars stacked in neat rows that clambered to the ceiling. Frogger kicked one of them, and it toppled, knocking down the others like dominos. They scrambled over the fallen bars and proceeded to the far bulkhead.

“Breachers!” Jain said.

Crusher and Frogger lined themselves up with the bulkhead, using the blueprints to guide them to the proper spot.

It took four concentrated strikes to break through the metal. Jain could see the cylindrical reactor core lying just beyond. And past it, the hulking, void-resistant creature.

“Peel back the exterior of the reactor,” Jain said.

Crusher and Frogger fired again, this time aiming at the curved metal base of the reactor.

Tentacles began to wrap around the cylindrical base of the reactor as the creature attempted to stop them. There wasn’t much room behind the reactor, so it was using its smaller tentacles.

But Marlborough fired his plasma rifle at those tentacles, and Jain, Sheila, Cranston, and Medeia targeted them with their lasers. They managed to keep the appendages at bay long enough for Crusher and Frogger to disintegrate the reactor’s protective surface.

The plasma conduit within was revealed. It shone brightly in the dim blue light that emanated from the bulkheads.

“Get back!” Jain retrieved his energy grenade, and waited for Crusher and Frogger to retreat. He stepped back himself, then he tossed the grenade into the opening and into the plasma channel.

The resultant detonation hurled him against the far bulkhead, along with the others. He landed in the ore bricks. Ahead, the plasma channel had turned black.

“We did it,” Jain said. “Team, it’s time to get out of here!”

He and the others retreated through the storage compartment’s opening at a jog. He took a left, retracing the route they’d used to get here.

“Tanis, do you read?” Jain said. “The shield is down.”

No response.

“There’s too many bulkheads between us and the hull,” Frogger said. “We probably won’t be able to reach the fleet until we leave the ship. Assuming the shield is actually down.”

“It’s down,” Jain said. He refused to believe that they had done all of this for nothing.

He reached a left turn, and paused to gaze past. The passageway teemed with termites. They crawled over every surface, as far as the eye could see, covering overhead, bulkhead, and deck.

“We’re trapped,” Medeia said. She was accessing his video feed.

“Not trapped,” Jain said. “Look at the map. There are other routes back to the original hull breach. We take another way.”

He turned around and followed another route.

Even if he couldn’t reach Tanis, the fleet would figure out the shield was down soon enough. It generated emissions that were unmistakable, a certain type of radiation that would have now ceased. The fleet would be coming in to make an attack run soon.

Tanis had promised he wouldn’t destroy the world killer entirely, at least not until the Mind Refurb teams made it out, but the admiral did plan to severely disable it. Somehow, Jain doubted that being aboard while that “severe disabling” took place would be fun.

But so far, those attacks didn’t seem to be coming.

“Wasn’t the admiral supposed to start pounding the hell out of the world killer once we took down its shields?” Frogger asked.

“Yes, but would we even realize it?” Medeia asked. “They could be attacking at this moment for all we know.”

“Oh, we’d know all right,” Frogger said.

“Guess they’re occupied,” Marlborough said.

“What if the shield isn’t down?” Cranston said. “What if we did all of this for nothing?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Medeia said.

“The shield is down,” Sheila said firmly. She glanced at Jain, who nodded stiffly.

But he was starting to second guess himself right about then. If that shield wasn’t down, he didn’t know what else the team could do. Eric was no longer with them. He was the one who knew the inner workings of this ship. Without him, those blueprints were essentially useless, at least when it came to figuring out points of attack. Jain studied them as he ran, but didn’t see anything that stood out to him. Most of the larger compartments were all the same size. They’d have to go through all of them, if they wanted to search for vulnerabilities.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have time. And he doubted the anti-boarding party units aboard would let them.

Ahead, one of the box robots with the dual turrets steered around the bend. Jain and the others unleashed their rifles and took it down, continuing forward. But then another robot appeared, and another.

“Got more robots behind!” Marlborough said.

Frogger and Crusher turned their weapons on a doorway beside them, and melted through it. Then Jain and the others piled inside. He took a hit in his shoulder as he retreated, and the beam burned right through.

Close one.

Frogger and Crusher remained by the entrance, and continued to defend by firing at the robots that approached from both sides.

Jain surveyed the compartment. It had stacks of large cubes piled up in one corner. Probably another storage area of some kind. Though what the purpose of those cubes was, he didn’t know. They were completely black, and gleamed slightly. Probably some kind of energy reserve.

“Marlborough, see if you can dig us a hole to the next deck,” Jain said.

Marlborough turned his plasma rifle down and fired into the metal floor. The surface turned red hot, then white, as he continued to fire. Then it began to dissolve, revealing another layer.

“It’s going to take a while,” Marlborough said. “Hopefully my weapon doesn’t overheat.”

“We’ll have Crusher and Frogger swap out with you, as necessary,” Jain said.

Cranston shook his head. “Where’s that attack run of yours?”

“I don’t know,” Jain said. “It’s coming, I assume. But to be honest, I’m not sure if we’d be better or worse off. The strikes might damage our attackers, or possibly distract them. Or…”

Sheila finished for him. “Or they might destroy us.”

23

Eric led the Bethunia on a strafing run at the enemy. All of the Link ships had clustered around the world killer to protect it when the shield went down, and so far they’d successfully prevented the defending fleet from causing any damage. Those concentric beams continued to fall in waves upon Earth, and reports came in of volcanic eruptions accompanying the earthquakes.

Eric glanced to his left. The Bug Killer accompanied him on this run. The vessel was so close, that he could see Slate standing in the candlelight of the forecastle as his boat swept across the bounding waves of the nighttime sea.

Eric attempted to steer through a pair of Trees that had planted themselves directly in front of him, but they unleashed their energy whips and he was forced to reverse course. He was just glad he had inertialess drives—Newtonian drives would have killed him in this scenario.

He fired gamma ray bursts at the fighters of a nearby Battleship that had come to assail him. A Teleporter appeared next to him, and he felt detonations aboard as the craft materialized bombs inside of him.

“Too close, bitch.” Eric smiled grimly as he veered toward the Teleporter, and let the micro machines that coated the surface of his mothership sweep over the enemy hull. The ship attempted to pull away, and Eric allowed it; he withdrew his micro machines, and pounded the ship with black holes. He watched in pleasure as the vessel imploded, its outer segments spaghettifying as they were swallowed. He fired dispersion bolts to get rid of those black holes—not a good idea to leave them in place this close to Earth—and then he changed course to swoop down on the world killer once more.

Slate had already finished his pass, and he was well ahead of Eric—his ship had sunk beneath the VR waves, as far as its virtual representation went. That was the problem with choosing a two-dimensional environment to represent a three-dimensional battlefield: it broke down when vessels departed the ecliptic plain. Didn’t matter. Eric was passing underneath the water too, now, like a submarine. But then the waves automatically reset, turning to accommodate his current direction, and the Bug Killer was on the horizon, next to the donut that was the world killer.

Eric weaved between the energy mines laid by a Minelayer ahead as the Hang Glider of a Tyrnari joined him, and they proceeded together toward the world killer. But there were too many Battleships. He released a steady stream of black holes, targeting the world killer beyond, and the Battleships swerved out of the way, but then Eric was assaulted by the fighters they’d launched. There were so many that his gamma rays weren’t able to take them all, and he was forced to turn back.

The Tyrnari vessel attempted to change course as well, but a Teleporter cut the craft off. The Tyrnari suddenly ceased all directional changes—its drives had been disabled by the bombs of the attacker. The Teleporter tried to swerve out of its way, but the drifting Tyrnari craft slammed into it, breaking both ships apart.

Eric’s black holes continued toward the world killer, rips in spacetime that all the other enemy ships had been forced to clear out of the way of. These generated black holes usually stopped in place when they formed, relative to a system’s sun, but they could be programmed to continue forward, traveling under the momentum transferred to them from the initial bolts that created them. He had produced the latter types of black holes during his attack run, and they spun menacingly toward the world killer, threatening to devour it.

Unfortunately, other than its shield, the world killer did in fact have a defensive weapon, if only one, despite popular opinion. And that was dispersions bolts. It used these to disperse the black holes Eric had fired, and he slumped in defeat.

The Mind Refurb vessels launched several nuclear missiles during the attack run, but the Link ships either shot them down, or allowed the missiles to strike their own ships, taking one for the team. The Tyrnari ships had fired those strange, bubble-like projectiles, while the Accomp in charge of the Devastator in Jain’s absence launched blobs, and either the Link ships reduced the strength of the projectiles with their own attacks, or similarly sacrificed themselves to prevent the weapons from striking the world killer.

Eric retreated, joining the Bug Killer on the far side as the remaining members of the defending fleet rendezvoused with the Earth Defense Force 1 and Task Force 88.

“We can’t get through,” Jhagan of the Tyrnari transmitted. “The Link defenses are too thick.”

“There has to be a way around them,” Traps transmitted from the Bug Killer. “I refuse to believe that our brothers and sisters sacrificed themselves for nothing.”

“Hey, we don’t know that they’re dead,” Eagleeye said.

“Then why haven’t we heard from them?” Traps pressed. “Without that shield, their transmissions should be able to get through.”

“The hull is obviously too thick for them to reach us,” Eagleeye said. “We won’t hear from them until they emerge.”

“Well if we don’t disable that world killer soon, there’s a chance it will repair its energy shield,” Eric said. “Then everything we did aboard will definitely be for nothing.” He studied the battle space, the beginnings of a strategy forming in his mind. “Who’s in charge of the Devastator in Jain’s absence?”

“That would be me, Xander,” the associated Accomp transmitted.

“Tanis, send Xander here some nukes via shuttle,” Eric said. “When you receive them, Xander, load them up into your skirmishers. Tanis, have the rest of your Mind Refurbs pack nukes into shuttles as well. As many as you can fit in each shuttle. Pull the warheads from the missiles. I want these shuttles to pack a punch.”

“What are you planning?” Tanis asked.

Eric explained his plan.

“Wait, what about the Mind Refurbs aboard?” Tanis sent. “Not that I’m complaining, but if successful, your plan will obliterate the world killer. I promised not to destroy the ship until they got out.”

Eric hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t think we really have a choice. If they haven’t gotten out by now, they never will. The AI aboard that ship will never let them out. You didn’t see what it was like in there. I could wait… in fact, there’s nothing more than I want to do. But I know that every minute we delay, the greater the chance the Earth won’t recover from this attack. Once the continents start drifting, it’s game over.”

“All right,” Tanis said. “I hear you. Good luck. And I hope… I hope you forgive yourself for this. I know what it’s like to sacrifice those who serve beneath you. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.”

Eric smiled wanly, then disconnected.

He paused for a moment. Am I doing the right thing?

He thought of what Crusher, Bambi, Sarge, and all the others had done the first time they’d ever saved Earth. They’d boarded one of the Banthar motherships like his own, and sacrificed themselves, almost to a man, to destroy it. Back then, they’d done it partially to save humanity, but also partly for the freedom their commanding officer had promised them.

Today was similar. Some of them might have claimed they hated humanity, but the truth was, they were here. They could have easily stayed back home on Banthar Prime if they hated humanity so much. Instead, they had chosen to fight for the humans that had given birth to their consciousnesses.

They would have wanted him to finish this thing, at all costs.

Still, he couldn’t shake the doubt he felt.

What if they’re alive? Do I really want to sacrifice my brothers and sisters for humanity once again?

He closed his eyes.

“Boss, are we really going to do this?” Slate asked.

“I don’t want to,” Eric replied. “But we have to.”

“Then why are we just sitting here, holding onto our dicks?” Slate said.

Eric straightened. Slate was right. It’s time to act. “Follow me in.”

“You got it,” Slate said. “By the way, was it really that bad in there? Aboard that ship?”

“Almost as bad as the first time we invaded a Banthar mothership,” Eric said.

“I’m suddenly glad I was stuck aboard the Bug Killer,” Hicks said.

Eric instructed two other Banthar vessels to join the Bethunia and Bug Killer. While the rest of the fleet headed toward the starboard side of the world killer, he skimmed off the Earth’s atmosphere, steering toward the farther port side.

When they were halfway to their target, the rest of the fleet began to launch the nuclear warhead-laden shuttles and skirmishers toward the starboard side of the world killer.

The enemy ships accelerated, and began to converge on the starboard section, moving in from all around the world killer in an attempt to stop the attack, causing the ranks on the other sides of the craft to thin out as planned.

Eric accelerated, turning toward the world killer, and heading straight for the port side, where the enemy ranks were the sparsest. He swooped inward, and he and the three ships with him unleashed a steady stream of momentum-enabled black holes before them. They followed those rips in spacetime inward, through the path the black holes cleared as the enemy ships veered out of the way.

The other Banthar broke away to deal with the Link ships that attacked from the flanks, but Eric continued on course.

The world killer fired its dispersion bolt defenses in rapid succession, and the closest black holes dissolved, but Eric didn’t care. Those black holes didn’t exist to cause damage to the world killer. Their sole purpose was to clear a path for him.

When all the black holes were gone, some of the dispersion bolts began to hit the Bethunia, but they did nothing of course.

As he got closer, the world killer suddenly shut off its pulse beam, ending the attack on Earth. It tried to accelerate away from him.

Eric grinned widely.

The aliens had realized too late that the black holes weren’t the threat.

Eric was.

“Eat shit you motherfuckers.”

The Bethunia smashed into the world killer, tearing both apart.

His viewpoint snapped back inside his android on Banthar Prime. He walked to the window of his loft apartment, and gazed out on Little Earth.

What have I done?

24

Jain crouched next to the entrance with Sheila, Medeia, and Cranston, and the four of them fired in both directions at the incoming attackers. Behind them, Frogger was unleashing his plasma weapon into the deck, enlarging the hole Marlborough had started. Marlborough and Crusher rested against the wall next to the stacks of cubes. They had both overheated their plasma rifles from firing it at the floor; Marlborough’s had gone offline first, followed soon thereafter by Crusher’s when she replaced him. Frogger’s weapon would overheat soon, too, at this rate. Hopefully Marlborough’s would recharge soon.

“According to the blueprints, the floor contains the thinnest metal in the area,” Frogger said. “You’d think I would have penetrated to the deck below by now.”

Outside, one of the box robots plowed past the wreckages of the fallen; Jain aimed at it and fired. He struck one of its dual turrets, and the robot promptly turned its remainder on him.

“Watch out!” he shouted as he ducked inside.

On the opposite side of the doorway, Sheila and Cranston also pulled back. The beam passed harmlessly in front of them, smashing against the bulkhead beside them.

Jain leaned out to fire again, but then the compartment broke apart.

“What the hell!” Medeia said.

“Frogger, what did you do?” Crusher asked.

“Wasn’t me!” Frogger replied.

Jain grabbed onto a fragment of floor, but then was dragged downward as a shard of metal jabbed into his leg. Around him was a ring of debris, which began to scatter. He caught a glimpse of swirling stars above, and the spinning Earth below.

“I thought Tanis said he would keep some of the ship intact until we got out!” Frogger exclaimed.

“Guess he changed his mind,” Jain said.

He glanced at his HUD, and was relieved to find that the status indicators of the team members were mostly green. Some of the indicators were orange, however, indicating severe damage. But everyone who had been trapped in that room had survived.

Luck is finally on our side.

As the debris continued to clear, he saw flashes appear to his right.

“What’s that?” Sheila asked.

Jain zoomed in. “It looks like Link ships. And they’re jumping out. En masse.”

“That’s because they failed,” Frogger said.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be back soon enough, I’m sure,” Marlborough said.

“So you’re the pessimist of the bunch,” Jain said.

“No, just the realist,” Marlborough said.

“Tanis, are you out there?” Jain tried as the debris spread out even further, and he spotted more points of light. He zoomed in on those. Piranha class.

He glanced at Sheila, who drifted away on another fragment nearby. He shoved off of his, and floated toward her. When he latched on, she glanced up in surprise.

But then she smiled sweetly. He adored that smile.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he told her. “Nice to see you.”

“Oh, it’s very nice,” she agreed.

“Tanis, do you read?” Jain tried again. He looked at Sheila. “They should be in range, shouldn’t they?”

“Probably,” she agreed. “But then again, our transmitters are weak. They—”

“I read you loud and clear,” Tanis interrupted. “Good job, Void Warriors. And Bolt Eaters. It’s time to come home.”

* * *

Shuttles came to retrieve Jain and the others, and returned them to the Forebode. The Void Warriors departed to their respective ships via more shuttles, while the Bolt Eaters left to join their companions on the Bug Killer.

Jain and the others restored their consciousnesses into their respective ships, and restored Mark and Gavin from their backups.

“I died again, didn’t I?” Mark said when he appeared on the virtual bridge.

“Me too,” Gavin said. “This sucks.”

“You both died well,” Jain said.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Gavin said. “Show me the recordings.”

Jain sighed, and sent it his way.

“Crap!” Gavin said. “I can’t believe I stood up into the line of fire like that.”

“We all make mistakes…” Jain said.

“Some deadlier than others!” Gavin said. “I’ll never learn.”

“Well at least we won, I assume?” Mark said.

“We did,” Jain agreed.

Medeia was looking at him, and she broke into tears when he finally glanced her way. She went to him, and gave him a hug.

“It’s all right baby, I’m back now,” Mark said.

She didn’t say anything. How could she?

Jain glanced at Sheila, and was just glad that she hadn’t died this time around.

“What about Earth?” Gavin asked. “Did the other Mind Refurbs succeed?”

“Jason and his War Forgers successfully disabled the shielding of the planet-side world killer,” Jain said. “Allowing air support to bomb it.”

“What about the bioweapons and other enemy units still out there?” Gavin said. “The aliens were creating rifts in cities throughout the world last I heard…”

“Eric sent Sloths and other Banthar mechs to help out,” Jain said. “They’ve been airlifted to the remaining hotspots, along with mechs and other hunter killer units from Earth’s infantry. Tanis tells me the alien holdouts won’t last for very long. We’ve won. For now.”

Over the next few hours, Cranston moved the teleporter parts he’d installed into the customized shuttle for the mission back into his main ship so that he had teleportation working again.

Jain received an invite from Eric then to join a custom virtual reality.

“Everyone’s here,” Eric said. “Join us for a drink.”

Jain and the others accepted the invitation and arrived at a virtual reality beach party. Jason was here with his clones, and his very beautiful crew of women. Brontosaurus had been restored from his backup. As had Dickson and Bambi. Jain also got to meet the rest of the Bolt Eaters.

He sought out Eric, who stood next to Bambi and Crusher on a flagstone terrace next to the beach. They looked even more beautiful in virtual reality, which could be expected.

“Heard you crashed your ship into the enemy,” Jain said. “That was gutsy.”

“Not as gutsy as it would’ve been were I actually aboard,” Eric said.

“How’d you get back here so fast?” Jain asked.

“My communications rift is still active,” Eric said. “I reconfigured a different Banthar vessel for remote operation, and here I am, aboard the Bethunia II.”

Eric finished his drink, and then it vanished. He wrapped his arms around the waists of Bambi and Crusher, and he pulled them in tight.

So Jain was right about their relationship. He felt a sudden sense of disapproval, but then dismissed it.

He supposed it didn’t matter. Jain was sleeping with one of his own team members, after all.

But at least not both of the women, like this guy.

He wasn’t sure how that could be sustainable for any man. The jealousy issues alone were enough to destroy the relationship. He’d seen it a few times among the SEALs he fought with. Between deployments, when they were at home, the guys usually shacked up with strippers or club girls. Most went for a single woman, but a few of the more adventurous types built up a rotation and met them for sex on a regular basis. But when those men tried to live with these multiple women of theirs, inevitably the relationships fell apart due to jealousy. Harems just weren’t sustainable in the long term.

Unless you were a guy like Jason—his women essentially had no other options. There weren’t many guys into women who inhabited towering, building-sized mechs, and Jason was the only male available.

But Eric was just an android. The women were androids, too, and when they inhabited their advanced machine bodies, they looked indistinguishable from most human women. In theory, they could have had any man they wanted. And with their perfect looks, they could have.

But they chose Eric for some reason.

From the way Eric fought, Jain thought he knew why.

He has at least as much courage, and definitely heart, as any SEAL I ever knew. And he’s saved the world more than few times. I can see his attraction to the opposite sex.

Still feeling the glow of that post-mission exuberance, Jain said: “One thing I’ve been wondering. Why the Bolt Eaters?”

Eric smiled. “Blame Sarge for that. He thought it was funny, with his twisted sense of humor and all, seeing as we were all machines. Back then, we inhabited these insect-like units called Cicadas. War machines that were deadly as hell. Though not as powerful as mechs. How about you, why the Void Warriors?”

It was Jain’s turn to grin. “It took us a while to come up with that name. Some of the other options were Hell in a Starship and Jain’s Bleeders.”

“Jain’s Bleeders!” Eric said. “Now there’s a fun name. And actually, quite suiting, after seeing you in action back there.”

“Yeah, well, Void Warriors seemed the most appropriate at the time, considering our bodies were spaceships,” Jain said. “And still are.”

“Except yours is the body of an alien spaceship,” Eric said.

“And so is yours, at the moment,” Jain said. “Or, I suppose, it’s actually an alien planet.”

“That it is.” Eric released Bambi and Crusher and materialized another glass in his hand. He took a sip.

Jason came over, bringing one of his crew. Her avatar actually had a tail of all things, jutting straight through the bottom portion of the skimpy bikini she wore. Jain reminded himself that these two were far deadlier than they looked—they had just defeated a planet-side world killer, after all. His initial impression of the kid had been way off the mark.

“It’s great to finally meet you,” Lori said, shaking Eric’s hand and all but ignoring Jain. “I’ve heard so much about you and the Bolt Eaters.”

“Someone’s a celebrity,” Bambi commented.

“Oh, I love your hair!” Lori told Bambi. “It’s so pretty.”

Crusher was frowning beside her.

Lori glanced at Crusher, and when she noticed the frown, she added quickly: “And so is yours.”

“Uh, thanks,” Crusher said.

Jason noticed Jain staring at him, and gave him a confused smile.

“You know, when I first met you, I didn’t think much of you,” Jain admitted to Jason. “I couldn’t figure out how you’d secured an alliance with an alien queen. But after your performance down there… I reviewed the replays. Some incredible stuff. You know how to fight. You and your War Forgers make a formidable team.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Jason said. “Now I just hope the rest of humanity feels the same way.”

Jain nodded. “I heard the military has been pestering your base in the uninhabited zone.”

“Pestering is a mild way of putting it,” Jason said.

“I’ll put in a good word for you with the President if I have a chance,” Jain said.

“He already called,” Jason said. “He promises the military will leave us alone when this is over. I guess we’ll just have to see.”

Lori suddenly spun towards him. “What do you mean, when this is over? I thought it was already over! We staved off an alien invasion!”

Another member of Jason’s crew sauntered over, hips swaying. A stunningly beautiful woman who dressed like she was Cleopatra or something. A quick glance at her profile told Jain her name was Sophie. She gave him a demure smile when she arrived.

Sheila suddenly appeared at Jain’s side, and slid a protective hand through the crook of his arm.

“Well, hello,” Sophie said. Her voice oozed sexuality.

“Hi,” Sheila responded before Jason could say a word.

Sophie gave her a dismissive glance, and then shrugged. She turned her attention to Jason. “Can we go soon? These people are boring.”

Jason gave her an incredulous look. “Sophie… come on. We’re hanging out with the legendary Bolt Eaters.”

Sophie shrugged. “I’m not impressed. They’re from a different era. I can’t relate to them.”

“You’re also hanging out with the legendary Void Warriors,” Sheila chimed in.

Sophie gave her a blank look. “Who?”

Jain chuckled softly, but before he could add anything, Eric dropped his glass as if poisoned. It shattered on the flagstones beneath him.

Bambi spun on him in worry. “What is it? Are you all right?”

“No,” Eric said. “Party’s over. I just got word from Tanis. More Teleporters have arrived. Fifty of them.”

“That’s not so bad,” Slate said, coming over. His avatar looked like a rapper, replete with gold chains hanging down his bare chest. “We can handle Teleporters. Why’d you spill your drink over that?”

“There’s one small problem,” Eric told him. “Ten world killers are accompanying them.”

Thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoyed The Link. Book 2, The Alliance, will be available next week. Click the link below to be notified when the book comes out, or to discover other novels in the Mind Refurb universe.

Get The Next Book

Or head to the next page to download your free starter library.

Want Free Books?

Free Download – Get Three More Books FREE

For a limited time, Isaac Hooke is giving away a FREE starter library here:

IsaacHooke.com/FreeBooks

Afterword

Please help spread the word about AI Empire by leaving a one or two sentence review. The number of reviews an ebook receives has a big impact on how well it does, so if you liked this story I'd REALLY appreciate it if you left a quick review. Anything will do, even one or two lines.

Thank you!

About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

Get in touch:

isaachooke.com
isaac@isaachooke.com

Facebook

Twitter

Acknowledgments

I’d also like to thank my knowledgeable beta readers and advanced reviewers who helped smooth out the rough edges of the prerelease manuscript: Nicole P., Lisa G., Karen J, Jeremy G., Doug B., Jenny O., Amy B., Bryan O., Gary F., Chris, Lezza, Noel, Anton, Spencer, Norman, and Trudi.

Without you all, this novel would have typos, continuity errors, and excessive lapses in realism. Thank you for helping me make this the best novel possible, and thank you for leaving the early reviews that help new readers find my books.

And of course I’d be remiss if I didn't thank my dear mother, father, and brothers, whose wisdom and insights have always guided me through the winding paths of space and time.

— Isaac Hooke

Get The Next Book