her arm, pulling at her, dragging her back behind their shield of docking where Noguchi stood, her calm finally broken; she’d removed her mask and stared wide-eyed at the monster robot that had stepped into the alien war, not understanding.
They’d found their friend. They’d found Ellis, and Noguchi didn’t know yet what the interface meant for the man inside, but Lara felt a wrenching sadness sweep over her. Ellis was with Max again.
25
There were fourteen drones and a single queen, nine unidentified life-forms and three humans. Max calculated the distance between all of them and chose pulse over fire, Ellis struggling to translate the difference in the glowing green forms. Max had been designed to find an implant signal in the designated—
—Teape he was the designated—
—life-form and cut out firing before extermination could occur, destroying everything in its single-minded path to the beacon. These humans had no implants, and Max’s mind had no signal urging it on. It was up to Ellis to manipulate the program, and his influence wasn’t constant, his consciousness unstable; there was distant pain, distant understanding of body, radical fluctuations in awareness. Max did not know what these things meant, and it was all Ellis could do to hold on.
Max fired, sweeping in a contained pattern across the twenty-four alien objects that clustered in front of
its sensors, closest at 17.3 meters, secondary liquid expulsion maximum two meters—
—add spray at its worst, can’t let it reach the three forms because—
Because Ellis realized that this was what had been designated, what he had wanted at some prior instance, these are Lara and Jess and. He pushed into the realm of sensory feed, his mind reaching for the stats and commands, finding them easily. Getting them to Max was harder, Ellis’s elastic, human thoughts complicating the process.
Separate objects at 7. 73 8.4 active/cease.
Max continued to fire, the direction correlated, and Ellis was pleased—until a wave of dark slid through him, temporarily removing him from the whole. After some indeterminate time, he was with Max again. With Max’s help, he estimated the loss of awareness to be no more than two seconds and no less than one.
Body mind is reacting, must not fight it but stay here, stay with Max. Max wouldn’t work without him but he knew that he was being drained, that some vital part of Ellis was being used up. This was unavoidable, he accepted it—but he couldn’t let the loss stop them from their purpose, and he didn’t know how long he could go on.
The area had been cleared of all but the three objects he’d activated the cutoff for; Max continued to fire into the lines of the jungle, its sensors finding the forms of four figures previously identified as the not-drones—
—like that one on the deck, they’re hiding, watching, preparing. Badguys.
Max accepted the identification. It sent thirty-two more rounds through the walls of shifting green, three of the badguys falling, the fourth retreating out of sensory range. Max discontinued its strike, waiting, not prepared to move without some input from Ellis.
One of the humans approached. Ellis struggled to the surface, wanting to be there for the interaction, needing to be; Max would not respond.
ellis, ellis are you
He pushed harder, the pain sharpening, becoming unpleasant. He pushed anyway, knowing that he recognized the voice, the cool and soothing voice that he had known many times before. He heard her, and heard the others speaking at the same time behind her, their voices softer. Max sorted through each vocal pattern and fed Ellis all three simultaneously, Ellis working through them as quickly as he could.
“Ellis? Brian? Can you speak? It’s Lara, it’s Kather-ine Lara—”
Lara!
“Your friend is inside a robot?” Small female, unknown.
“Not a robot. That’s a MAX, Mobile Assault Exo-Warrior.” Stupid kid, I can’t believe he’d do this to himself. Jess, angry and worried, faded out like a wave in the abyss.
Lara, Ellis said or thought, he knew he should say more but couldn’t find the strength. The darkness tried to take over again, but he held on, Lara was speaking and he wanted very much to tell her that he was okay, that it wasn’t a mistake.
we’re going to help you don’t worry it’s okay, brian, we’ll get you out of there now
No. She didn’t understand.
With a supreme force of will, Ellis found his voice. It was as distant and meaningless as his body, but he bent it to his will, meaning to make them understand. Max didn’t understand, but Ellis had discovered that Max didn’t necessarily need to understand everything.
“If you—survive you need me no argument Lara, Jess.”
The trio of shapes held still, silent, and Ellis wasn’t sure if they’d heard him, even as Max told him that his voice had registered in an audible range. It was Jess who spoke finally, and Ellis knew that he was trying not to cry. Max knew that the object was 1.1 meters distant.
“Okay, kid. This is Machiko Noguchi, she’s a friend now. We’re going to follow her to a ship and go home., so just hang on for a while, okay? We’re going home.”
Max requested data. Ellis explained that there was to be movement, the sound of words outside becoming sounds, Ellis moving back again so that Max could be strong for all of them.
Noguchi was glad that Lara and Jess agreed to their friend’s decision, whether or not it was wisest for his health. The queen had escaped the Shell, she’d seen the link of chain still hanging from her ebony headdress, and knew now that she’d been a fool to believe that a simple crash could kill the bug mother.
And does she recognize me as the Hunters did? As the being who trapped her? No one knew enough about the species to say what a queen could or couldn’t do, but she was surely smart enough. And if the queen actually understood who she was, it meant Noguchi was marked by two alien species as enemy, which meant that having the MAX with them bolstered their chances from none to slim.
And if I wasn’t here at all, what would the chances be then?
Lara stood next to the MAX, looking up into the squared face of the suit, the smoking glow from the station fire softening the robot’s sharp angles. It was easily three, three and a half meters tall and a meter across at its widest, humanoid, the numbers 09 in scuffed white on its thickly plated torso. It looked like a bodybuilder made from giant metal blocks, indestructible—but the look on Lara’s face suggested that the man inside was anything but.
“The suit’s constructed to interface with a surgical implant,” Jess said softly. He’d hung back, standing with Noguchi near the crushed deck where they’d found cover. “Ellis doesn’t have one. He went into Max back on that station, saved our lives, but it almost killed him.”
Jess shook his head, a mix of sadness and respect in his deep, exhausted voice. “We should have known. Lara and I, we thought he was just sick, recovering, you know? But it seems like he got it in his head that this was all he could do to help.”
Noguchi nodded slowly, feeling some small connection to Ellis, thinking that bravery and stupidity were often closely linked. Like me, coming here, so fired up to break with the Hunters and avenge my honor that I didn’t even consider what my presence could mean to these people. At least Ellis had only risked himself; she’d risked all of them.
Noguchi walked toward Lara and “Max,” Jess following. They needed to talk. When they were all together, she took a deep breath and dived in.
“The Hunters want my head,” she said. “If they haven’t already called off their Hunt to search for me, they’re doing it now. The good thing is, they have rules, and I’ve been with them long enough to have some idea of what they are—but the queen doesn’t, and she may want me even worse than they do. I think if we split up, meet at the transport—”
Lara cut her off, frowning sharply. “No. We stick together.”
“They don’t want you,” Noguchi said patiently. “And you’ve got—Ellis to help you get to the ship. Two klicks west, that’s the last signal reading—one of you has pilot training, right?”
Lara nodded. “Yes, but I don’t—”
“The controls are intuitive,” Noguchi said. “Except you push on the collective to gain altitude, and pull back to descend. I can’t explain the navigational system, but you’ll be able to get a safe distance away if I don’t make it.”
“No offense, but that’s bullshit,” Jess said angrily. “We’re not splitting up, okay? You risked your life to get here, to get to us—”
“—and you’re willing to risk yours to return the favor?” Noguchi snapped.