War Wolves: Boxset 1-3

by Jonathan Yanez

  “Orders?” a husky male voice said over the comms. “We didn’t get the intel we needed.”

  “Gunna?” Another male voice, this one excited with the promise of a fight. “Evacuate, or lower the boom?”

  “Atlas, Ragnar, light ’em up.” Gunna gave the two men in her squad the go ahead. “Brimley, watch the flank.”

  “Roger!” three voices answered in unison.

  Gunna maneuvered the controls in her cockpit to face the wave of oncoming Zenoth. With her own hands, she pushed the handles in front of her to extend her mech warrior’s fists and the steel cannons that rested on either forearm. There were so many of the insect alien creatures racing toward them, aiming wasn’t an issue.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The air lit up around the four warriors as they poured hot metal rounds into the enemy. They had accomplished what they’d come for, the very worst of their suspicions confirmed.

  The Zenoth weren’t a particularly intelligent race, but there were hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of them. Hatched in their underground nests, they were born hundreds at a time.

  Gunna fired hot steel rods from the twin cannons on her forearms, through the coming horde of Zenoth. Their green blood painted the ground in front of her squad a hundred yards away. At this rate, they would run out of ammunition before they killed half of the swarming force.

  Already a pile of corpses was beginning to grow, making it harder for the live Zenoth to reach them over their dead brethren.

  “Dreadnaught.” Rippa opened a link to the orbiting battleship over Raydon that awaited their return. “This is Major Rippa Gunna, requesting an orbital strike at 0991 2429. Do you copy?”

  “Your coordinates are received and locked,” said the nasally voice of some desk jockey who had no idea what it meant to have boots on the ground.

  A deep breath, and then a hesitant sigh from the same nasally voice came over the line as he found an error with the request.

  “Major, fleet regulations specify any friendly is supposed to be at least—”

  “I know the rules; there’s no time.” Rippa turned her giant battle mech left to protect their flank as a dozen Zenoths tried to catch them off guard. “Send the strike!”

  “Strike incoming,” the nasally voice came back to her. “Keep your heads down.”

  “Roger that.” Rippa switched over to the link to speak with her unit. “Orbital strike incoming—anchor in!”

  Gunna punched a button on her control panel set in front of her in the small confines of her mech unit. The area that made up her cockpit was just large enough for her to move her limbs in every direction. A black control no larger than a keyboard was set in front of her, giving her the option from everything of firing the rockets under her mech’s boots, to opening up with her laser cannon on the enemy horde. Right now, she was only interested in her mech’s anchoring capabilities.

  Once she hit the button, spikes from both of her mech’s feet buried themselves into the ground a foot and a half deep. Once inside the rough terrain, each spike opened with four smaller steel rods pointing out, cementing the mech’s position.

  “That orbital strike coming soon?” Brimley shouted over the comm. “It’s going to come down to claws and flame throwers in a few minutes.”

  Both of Rippa’s forearm cannons pounded round after round into the Zenoth horde, but still they came. It seemed like for every Zenoth they sent to its grave, three more jumped over its body and charged forward.

  “Thunder is on the way,” Rippa yelled into her comm as she split a Zenoth fifty yards in front of her completely in two with a barrage of steel rods. “Hold those claws in tight.”

  “Incoming!” Atlas roared over the comm.

  BOOM!

  Gunna closed her eyes as the orbital strike hammered the Zenoth a few hundred yards from their position. Multiple munitions detonated on the hard Zenoth soil as the bombing run began.

  She got small, her mech hunched down as low to the ground as possible. Even then, the shock from the blast nearly tore her unit from its place in the ground.

  As soon as the blast subsided, Rippa looked at the aftermath through her screen. It was now or never. They had come to Raydon to figure out what the Zenoth were up to. They had minutes to climb down into one of the Zenoths’ hive holes and perform a holo sweep before the Zenoth mounted another attack.

  “Spartans, on me!” Rippa slammed her hand against the control board, retracting the anchor spikes protruding from her mech’s feet. “We have a small window of opportunity before the Zenoth regroup. Let’s get this done.”

  Rippa didn’t wait to hear her unit respond; she was already on her feet, sprinting over the charred and still burning crater the orbital strike had made. Zenoth husks and body parts lay strewn across the strike zone like confetti thrown without care. Varying shades of green blood and gore painted the scene in carnage.

  Beyond the dark smoke from the orbital strike in front of her, Rippa saw the Zenoth hive entrance. If she could get inside, the holo tech would do the rest, sweeping the interior of the underground hive and providing all the info they needed.

  “Spartans, hold the entrance to the hive.” Rippa raced toward the entrance that looked like a dormant volcano. A steep incline led to a hole that would take her a quarter mile into the planet’s core and the hive of the Zenoth. “Give me sixty seconds.”

  “Major, we can help!” Ragnar sounded borderline panicked over the comm. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “Hold the line,” Rippa responded. Her heads-up display tracked her route to the top of the mound and what lay beyond. “That’s an order. Give me sixty seconds; that’s all I’ll need.”

  Gunna sprinted her mech to the top of the hill and launched herself the last few feet. Sweat poured into her face from the inside of the mech. The sensors strapped to her legs and arms meant everything she did in the tight space was mirrored by her armor. Sprinting up the slope was harder than she had imagined.

  Here we go, Rippa thought as she launched into the air over the ledge of the hive entrance and fell straight down the black hole. Into the belly of the freaking beast.

  Rippa engaged the dual rockets located on the underside of each giant metal foot. The tunnel leading straight down was wide enough for her entire unit of mechs to stand side by side and still have room to maneuver.

  The farther she fell, the faster the light above her dissipated.

  Gunna had killed thousands of Zenoth in her day, but she had never been in a hive before. The darkness gave way to a dull blue glow that seemed to come from the walls of the tunnel itself. A weird luminescent light showed her all she needed to see.

  A dozen feet below, her mech came to a stop on the rough, uneven floor of the hive. Four tunnels branched out around her. Hungry black eyes from thousands of Zenoth filling every tunnel stared back at Rippa. They seemed just as stunned to see a Grovothe mech in their hive as Rippa was to see them.

  Strength, finish the mission, Gunna reminded herself as she pressed the button on her display for the holographing of the hive to begin. Green lights raced from her mech in the direction of all four tunnels. The mapping technology would be quick; no more than a few seconds.

  Gunna didn’t have a few seconds. As if they were waking from a spell, the Zenoth charged the mech. Despite their lack of weapons or armor, hive mentality took over.

  “Come on!” Rippa screamed at them. She clenched her right hand. Three individual blades, each four feet in length, sprung from her right fist. The sword-like weapons sprouted from between each knuckle as her left hand blasted a wall of flames at the Zenoth. “Let’s go!”

  Zenoth screamed in pain as they were engulfed in flames. Gunna severed the heads off two of the Zenoth with a single stroke of her right arm. Still, there were too many. They were on her, under her, climbing up her back in a matter of seconds.

  Warning lights went off in front of her. The one weapon the Zenoth did have, their incredibly strong
pincers, were being put to good use. They clamped onto Rippa’s mech’s legs, arms, even around its throat.

  BEEP.

  The mapping technology was complete. She had her scan of the hive.

  Another warning light went off. Rippa’s mech armor was compromised. The Zenoth all around her were applying an incredible amount of pressure.

  Gunna slammed her fist, firing up the jets. She put them on maximum power as she rocketed from the ground. All around her, Zenoth fell off, clicking their pincers in fury.

  Gunna shot straight up, back through the hive tunnel, shaking off Zenoth as she went. By the time she could see light, only two Zenoth remained—one attached to her right foot, the other wrapped around her left forearm.

  She struck out with her left foot, crushing the exoskeleton of the Zenoth attached to her foot. The claws on her right hand hammered through the eye sockets of the Zenoth attached to her arm. The Zenoth geysered green blood, soaking her mech.

  Cresting the lip of the hive, Gunna cut the power to the rockets under her feet. The fuel supply beeped with a red indicator. She was almost out of fuel.

  “Are you all right?” Atlas’s rough voice came over the comm. “Did you get it?”

  “I got it.” Rippa’s mech touched down beside the other mechs. “Let’s get to the rendezvous and off this godforsaken planet. The Zenoth won’t be far behind.”

  Three metal heads nodded in unison as they turned and sprinted to the extraction zone where an Archangel A4 transport ship waited to take them back to the Dreadnaught orbiting the planet.

  Gunna did a sweep with her scanners to ensure any Zenoth in pursuit would still be behind them when they reached the extraction point. They were on track to reach the Archangel transport ship a full minute before the Zenoth could catch up, so she took the opportunity to review the information the mapping tech had taken of the underground Zenoth hive.

  Her heart sank when she saw the display on her screen.

  The room of Grovothe leaders aboard the Dreadnaught sat quiet, gawking at the images the holograph of the Zenoth hive had brought back. The information was horrifying. If the Zenoth were able to build ships, the end would be near. The only reason the Zenoth horde was able to be contained at all was the fact they were a lower life form capable of nothing more than crude weapons at the very best.

  “If they’ve allied with the Karnayers, we’ll need the full support of our armada behind this strike,” Admiral Tricon said. He rubbed a wrinkled thumb over the deep scar on the right side of his face. The wound itself was rumored to have been from the Zenoth hive queen. “And that still may not be enough. We’ve been holding the Zenoth at bay for hundreds of years, but with this new ally feeding them tech, it may be enough to tip the scales in their favor.”

  The war council assembled in the Dreadnaught was as quiet as a tomb. The information Rippa and her Spartans had brought back was the very worst kind. The sheer number of the Zenoth, coupled with Karnayer technology, was a disturbing thought.

  “Sir?” Major Gunna raised her hand, remembering a transmission received a few days before.

  “Yes, Major Gunna?” The admiral placed both hands on top of the table in front of him. The sleeves of his tight, grey uniform hugged his thick arms. The concentrated hulk of medals, those won in dozens of offenses, hung over his heart and caught the room’s light, glistening. “What is it?”

  “I heard reports of a planet reaching out for allies.” Rippa looked around the table for support. “Perhaps we have more friends than we know?”

  “I doubt any of our current allies will be able to send help to quell an offense that as of yet does not exist.” An intelligence officer named Jaroth scowled at the situation. “No one is going to believe us when we tell them the Zenoth have figured out how to build ships capable of traveling to other star systems.”

  “The report I heard was of a new planet reaching out for allies.” Rippa tried to recall the exact information. “A planet called … Merth?”

  “Earth.” Jaroth leaned away from an assistant who had just whispered into his ear. “We received the hail, but did not respond. The species that lives on that planet only have their technology because it was given to them by an alien force that has since been overtaken.”

  “Still”—Admiral Tricon looked from Rippa to Jaroth—“if this planet is willing to help, we are in no position to refuse the offer. If they received their technology from another race, let’s hope they’ve managed to evolve with it.”

  47

  CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

  Ketrick and Rizzo raced to finish the twenty-ounce glasses of beer they pressed to their lips. Amber liquid ran down each of the corners of their lips as they gulped large mouthfuls of the alcohol.

  At once, the two men lowered their mugs to the table, trying to be the first; the sounds of the glasses striking the circular wooden table in the bar came in unison.

  “It was me!” Ketrick looked over at Vet and Riot for confirmation. “I was the first to claim victory!”

  Rizzo shook his head emphatically, waving a finger at Ketrick and pointing to a milliliter of beer still in his mug.

  “I don’t know, there, Prince,” Riot said with a nod toward Ketrick’s glass. “It doesn’t look empty to me.”

  “No matter,” Ketrick said, slapping Rizzo on the shoulder. “I love this game. Let’s do it again!”

  Riot couldn’t remember smiling as much as when she was around Ketrick. The Trilord prince was like a kid. Ever since he had come back with them from Hoydren as an emissary between his people and Earth, Riot felt happy.

  From his genuine fascination with things like elevators and jeeps, to the way he spoke with strength and determination. After the War Wolves had completed their mission and returned to Earth, Ketrick was kept in the Bulwark for observational tests. Today marked their first run outside of the top-secret facility.

  Riot and two other members in their unit had decided to take Ketrick to a bar where he could try to fit in. Riot, along with Vet, Rizzo, and Ketrick wore civilian clothing—jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts. The fabric felt strange on Riot, with the weirdest thing being not having on her combat boots that usually hugged her feet so tightly, they nearly cut off circulation.

  Ketrick wore a pair of dark sunglasses to hide his red eyes, and a mouthpiece that fit onto the upper part of his jaw that camouflaged his abnormally long fangs. Wang and Doctor Deborah Miller had fashioned the mouthpiece for him, allowing Ketrick to walk freely among the rest of humanity.

  Wang and Deborah had stayed behind, despite the offer of a night out. Wang was deep into his next sci-fi novel, while Doctor Miller simply said she had work to do. When she was prodded for more information, she had stonewalled them.

  So it was left to the three humans and one Trilord to go out into the Southern California sun and relax. They had decided on a bar called “The Derelict” and had ordered three beers, along with an energy drink for Riot.

  Her long past with alcohol abuse was still too fresh to even think about taking a sip. The memory of drinking her worries away while on Hoydren haunted Riot. She’d thought she was stronger than that. What had happened?

  “You okay?” Ketrick’s six-foot-seven frame leaned on the bar next to her. “You look like you are disturbed by your thoughts.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not too far from the truth on that one, Muscles.” Riot lifted the orange energy drink can to her lips. The carbonated chemicals tickled her throat as they rushed to her stomach. “How’s Vikta holding up with you being gone?”

  Vikta was Ketrick’s dragon who could control her size, ranging anywhere from the dimensions of a horse to a house. The dragon had been friendly enough on the ride back to Earth, and thus far, had behaved herself in the Bulwark.

  “She’s patient, but she’ll need to spread her wings soon,” Ketrick said, adjusting the dark glasses on his face. The long hair tied behind him, and his short dark beard, made him look like a cross between a barbarian and a hipster. “I
was going to speak with you, see if you could talk to General Armon about allowing Vikta to fly at night.”

  Riot cocked her head, weighing what she thought the general’s answer would be. General Armon was the new head of SPEAR (Special Purpose Exploration and Recon). The secret organization’s former leader, Captain Harlen, had been sent to Hoydren with a platoon of scientists to act as emissaries to the Trilords. Their mission was to learn and share whatever they could. A tit-for-tat that could prove the best way to protect humanity in an increasingly dangerous universe.

  “Maybe.” Riot shrugged. “I don’t know him that well. But seeing as how you’re a prince of your people and all, I think it would be hard to deny you. As long as you took Vikta high over the ocean, I can’t imagine you would be sighted easily.”

  “So it’s a date?” Ketrick wagged his eyebrows above his sunglasses.

  Riot took a deep breath. The memory of their kiss on Hoydren and the feelings she had for Ketrick couldn’t be denied, but neither could her position as the leader of her unit. “Listen, what happened with us on Hoydren was … great, I’m not going to lie, but…”

  Riot looked around to make sure Vet and Rizzo were preoccupied. To her delight, a pretty brunette had strolled over and had begun making conversation with the men. They were more than preoccupied for the moment.

  “We can’t do this.” Riot tried to imagine the look in Ketrick’s red eyes past his dark sunglasses. “No matter how we feel. We both have duties to attend to. You, to your planet; and me, to the Marines.”

  “And you don’t think an opportunity exists for these two ideas to coexist?” Ketrick took a seat next to her at the bar. The stool he sat on groaned under his muscular form. “We can have both and be better for it. We have a saying on my planet. It would be hard for you to pronounce, but it means ‘two are better than one.’”

  “Yeah, we have that saying here, too, Romeo,” Riot said, feeling a flutter of panic race down to her stomach as she found herself actually considering the idea of pursuing something with Ketrick.