Gavin Smith - Veteran

We flew in an arrowhead formation, tight as possible to keep within the biometric pattern that Gregor was transmitting. Gregor was point, Morag and Rannu flanked him, Pagan and Mudge flanked them and I flanked Pagan. Balor flew in the centre of the V providing our rearguard. We stayed as close to the rocks as we could and tried to avoid any of Their growth.

Moving was a matter of firing a blast of compressed air from the propulsion fin to send you in the direction you wanted to go, and then making any adjustments to your course with smaller blasts of compressed air. We, or rather I, and I’m assuming it was the same for the other members of the team, experienced more than one moment of pant-shitting terror as we came round a blind corner to find Them-growth or worse some Them-form only to have it seemingly ignore us. This was either because of the biometric pattern that Gregor was transmitting or because we were superfluous to its duties. Despite this and the general constant high stress level, the main problem was a struggle to stay alert because of the slowness of our movement. Going from one piece of cover to the next was boring, except when we had to cross large areas of open space. That got exciting largely because you didn’t know if you were going to get seared open by black light at any given moment. We were really penetrating Themspace; I couldn’t believe we were really doing this. I needed a cigarette and a drink.

We formed a rough circle in an indent on a smallish, tethered asteroid close enough to Maw City, as I’d come to think of the nearby habitat, to be bathed in its ambient light. I felt a thrill of success at getting this close. We truly were sneaky bastards! We were looking up at another rock face about a hundred and fifty feet away from us. I felt one of the other mechs touch my Mamluk’s arm. I moved my mech’s head to take in the image of Morag signalling that she was leaving. I signalled a negative for no good reason. I didn’t want her to leave. It was too soon and I was still alive, but she signalled an affirmative. I signalled her to wait and reached out. Signals from the Mamluk’s armoured skin told me my mech had touched hers. Gas escaped from her propulsion fin and I watched as her mech gracefully, or so it seemed to me, took off into the void.

We stayed where we were, giving Morag time to get clear. Now beads of sweat were beginning to appear on my skin as each second passed without my mech’s passive scanner picking up weapons fire. Each second that Morag didn’t transmit to say she was in trouble meant that I knew she was still alive.

There was another tap on my arm. I turned to see Mudge’s mech gesturing towards the lip of the small crater in which we were hiding. I could just make out the irregular silhouette of a Walker beyond the lip on the surface of the asteroid. I turned back to Mudge. Beyond his mech I could see the Dog Soldier disappearing into a cavern entrance in the asteroid. I couldn’t see Gregor so presumably he was in the cave as well. The rest of them were crawling in what looked like slow motion towards the cave entrance. Mudge was doing the same and I followed.

Last into the cave, I ended up acting as picket. It was huge. I looked past the rest of them as they moved deeper into the cathedral-sized cavern. I could see another exit about a kilometre away from my position. Between here and there huge pillars of rock joined the ceiling to the floor. I was lying on a smooth slope next to a wall about twenty yards away from the cave entrance and was trying to make myself as small a target as possible, hoping that the stealth and camouflage systems of the Mamluk would protect me. About fifty yards behind me Balor was acting as fire support, covering my position, crouched down near to one of the pillars.

Although facing the cavern mouth, the Mamluk’s systems were providing me with a full three-sixty view on my internal visual display. I saw Gregor organising the others by hand signal to patrol into the cavern. He signalled to Pagan to join them, but Pagan signalled negative. Gregor signalled for Pagan to join him again, and again received a refusal. This was pissing me off. As if we weren’t in a tight enough situation, Pagan was choosing now to be insubordinate. Pagan moved behind the pillar next to Balor and out of my view. Even in his alien form I could tell Gregor was annoyed. Shaking his triangular head in an oddly human gesture, Gregor led Rannu and Mudge deeper into the cavern, walking in a staggered line.

There was nothing at the cave entrance. I was hoping that the Walker hadn’t seen us. There was certainly nothing to suggest we’d been caught in an active scan. That didn’t, however, mean we hadn’t been picked up on a passive scan. The bioluminescence of Maw City and the other Them-growth nearby lit up the cave mouth but threw the area where I was lying into shadow. I wished we’d brought vacuum-capable crawler cams or mites with us so I could check out what was going on on the surface of the asteroid, but any transmissions from devices like that would’ve been picked up.

Behind me, Gregor, Rannu and Mudge had stopped their advance towards the other entrance. Gregor and Rannu were providing security while Mudge looked at something. I split-screened my visual display and had the Mamluk zoom in on Mudge’s area. All through the rear part of the cavern alien growth coated the rock walls.

‘Shit,’ I muttered quietly. The soft jazz wasn’t doing quite such a good job of keeping me calm now. I watched as the growth began to move, crawl together and form the sort of lattice pattern I’d come to connect with Them sensor systems. That was it. We were compromised. It was all over bar the shooting now. I signalled to Balor that we were compromised and pointed to Mudge’s position. The hive-mind nature of Them meant that if a cell in here knew, then all of them in the Dog’s Teeth knew.

I barely had time to register the silhouette of the Walker backlit by the bioluminescence of Maw City before it exploded, its flesh floating away in the vacuum. It had been hit by one of the massive 105-millimetre shells from Balor’s mass driver. Its legs were still stuck to the cave-mouth rock by their tiny molecular hooks.

Then of course there were more of Them. My acquisition software promised me a target-rich environment as Berserks swarmed into the cave mouth. We activated the rest of our Mamluk systems, my internal visual display now receiving feed from all the other mechs bar Gregor’s organic one. I fired, shifted target, fired another burst and moved to the next target as 20-millimetre rounds from my railgun tore Them apart.

Rounds from Balor’s 30-millimetre railgun flew over my head as he provided longer bursts, trying to deny the Berserks the cave entrance, but there were too many of Them. Every time a Walker stalked into view Balor would fire his mass driver and the alien mech would silently explode. Despite our firepower They were creeping towards us. Their returning fire was light but getting heavier as black light scarred the rocks near me and shards rained down on my armour.

Glancing at the feeds from Rannu and Mudge, I could see that they and Gregor had taken to the air. The Mamluks were using the jet systems on their propulsion fins, all attempts at stealth pointless now. Rannu and Mudge laid down fire in long bursts from their railguns and Gregor did the same with his shard cannon as Berserks flooded the other cavern entrance. I watched blue contrails of energy as Gregor launched three missiles from his right shoulder launcher at the other cave mouth. They exploded in a line, blasting the Berserks and two Walkers back out into space. This gave the three of them enough time to get into position, using the columns of rock that ran from ceiling to roof as cover. They continued firing at the cave entrance, trying to deny the area to Them.