Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  Then Tessa was on top of her, clutching the hair on the back of her head, making tears spring to Lisa’s eyes. The dizzying drop stretched below her.

  “Take a good look,” the old woman said, and then she sent Lisa hurtling over the edge. The concrete floor of the warehouse rushed up to meet her.

  The dream ended, and Lisa jolted awake in her seat, heart hammering in her chest.

  She looked at Tessa. “How—how did you—?”

  “Beat you?” Tessa looked fully alert, as though she’d never been asleep at all. “Easy. I’ve had actual military training, not this lucid crap Darkstream uses to puff up its new recruits. I trained in the UHF, girl. Whereas you’ve let yourself be convinced by fictions. You’re used to dreaming that you’re stronger and braver than you actually are.”

  “What are you talking about? Lucid has been an important part of the Darkstream recruitment process for almost a decade.”

  “And it’s a useful tool—if you use it correctly. Darkstream doesn’t. You passed their tests while you still lived out in the Belt, right?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, those tests are essentially useless, unless you have an experienced soldier who’s used to training recruits and who’s able to physically test you. Not in the dream—in real life. Yes, the implants can lend structure to our dreams, but there’s still plenty of room for the subconscious to influence an improperly calibrated sim. You need a real-live person who can test your actual abilities and your fear responses, in real life, and who can then calibrate your implant to simulate them properly. You, Lisa—I hate to tell you—you’re strong-spirited but you aren’t much else. The problem’s rather pronounced in your case, because you’re good at convincing yourself that you’re great. But you’re not. You’re a weak, incapable soldier.”

  Lisa’s eyes strung, but she refused to give in to tears. Her gaze drifted to Andy, to see how he was reacting to Tessa’s commentary, but for once he knew not to speak. He kept his eyes glued to the terrain before the beetle.

  “Well, thanks,” Lisa said, her voice a little shaky. “Thanks for that.”

  “There’s a reason I’m being this harsh, girl,” Tessa said, her voice just a jot more tender than before. “I wouldn’t be so candid with you if I wasn’t willing to train you.”

  “You said I need UHF training,” Lisa said flatly. “Not this ‘Darkstream lucid crap.’”

  Tessa nodded. “You do indeed. Your training should involve the mental, physical, and emotional rigors of actual military training. And you’re in luck. The UHF may be in another galaxy, but you have me. I trained soldiers for the UHF before I went to work for Darkstream.”

  Slowly, Lisa nodded. “All right. Fine. When do we begin?”

  “Right now.” Tessa moved from her seat to the empty one next to Andy. “Do you know what a burpee is?” she asked Lisa without looking at her.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. There should be enough room in the aisle. For the push-up part, you can spread your arms out between the seats. Now get to it. And don’t forget to compensate for the beetle’s movement. No need to have you bouncing around the cabin and bothering the rest of us.”

  “How many do you want me to do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll let you know once I do. Maybe.”

  Chapter 16

  Firing a Real Gun

  It turned out Tessa wanted her to do as many burpees as it took for her arms to become limp noodles and for her to collapse on the beetle floor in a sweaty, panting heap.

  When they stopped for the night, as Andy inflated their portable habitat, Tessa set up some virtual targets on a cliff face a few dozen meters away from their campsite. She sent them to Lisa’s implant, which painted them maroon, right over the blue rock.

  “Why can’t we just do this in lucid?” Lisa asked.

  “Because there’s no replacement for firing a real gun, girl.”

  An hour of shooting told Tessa that Lisa’s accuracy needed a lot of work, which she announced over a wide channel as they were stripping off their suits inside the habitat airlock and using the built-in vacuum to catch as much of the blue dust as they could before entering their temporary home.

  The inflatable habitat consisted of a central area with four private “bedroom” bubbles leading out of it. The portals to the bedrooms also sealed tight, so that if there was a leak in one section, it wouldn’t affect them all.

  It was just one of many safety precautions, of course: an alarm was supposed to sound in the event of a leak, allowing them to repair it in plenty of time.

  Hopefully.

  It depended on the size of the leak.

  “I’m heading to bed,” Lisa said. “I’m wiped.”

  “No, you’re not,” Tessa said.

  “Huh? Yes I am. I’m exhausted.”

  “You can address me as ma’am,” Tessa said. “And I wasn’t disagreeing that you’re tired. I’m disagreeing that you’re going to bed. I want fifty shock push-ups, right now, and that’s just to start.”

  “What’s a shock push-up?”

  Tessa demonstrated, performing a regular push-up on the way down but throwing herself into the air with her hands and clapping before catching herself and lowering into another rep. “Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lisa said wearily, and got into position herself.

  “Keep your back straight, Seaman,” Tessa barked. “You’re letting it droop.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lisa grunted.

  Andy sat on one of the air-filled seats that projected from the inner wall of the habitat, looking on, wearing a blank expression. He seemed to be lost in thought.

  Not Tessa. She stood in the space between two of the seats, berating Lisa for her poor form.

  “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, Seaman!” Tessa yelled. “I see you letting your back droop again. If you don’t straighten it right now, and keep it straight, I’m going to sit on it. Then I’m going to want twenty more shock push-ups, with me riding shotgun. So straighten up.”

  Ninety minutes later, Tessa said, “Okay. That’ll do for tonight.”

  Lisa allowed herself to fall back from the leg raise she’d been performing, her chest heaving, her eyes wandering across the ceiling of the habitat.

  “I’m heading to bed,” Tessa said. “You’re welcome to do that as well, girl, if you can make it there.” Opening the portal to her bedroom bubble, Tessa disappeared inside it, sealing it shut behind her.

  “Go ahead,” Lisa said to Andy, her breath still ragged. “Say something snarky.”

  “You look good.”

  “What? Really?”

  Andy nodded, saying nothing else. Gradually, Lisa’s breathing slowed, and she managed to heave herself onto one of the seats, where she sat with her elbows on her knees and her head hanging. Her raven hair had become loose, and now it spilled down toward the floor.

  “Why’d you stop returning my calls, Andy?” Lisa asked. The words just came out, surprising even her. Maybe the intense PT had dislodged them.

  “Oh. I…I just…I don’t think I could be happy with you. Sorry, Lisa. I should have said something, but…it was just easier to fall out of touch.”

  And to act like a jerk whenever you ran into me at the Dusty Bucket, Lisa would have added. But she didn’t. “Why’d you think you wouldn’t be happy with me?”

  He shrugged. “Too many options.”

  “Huh? Options?”

  “Yeah. You know. If I’d gone with you, there would have always been a prettier girl to distract me and cause trouble.”

  “A prettier girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I see,” she said, and the words sounded icy even to her ears. She was glad. She dragged herself to her feet and trudged to the portal that led into her own bedroom. “Good night, Andy.”

  “Good night,” he said, his expression unreadable.

  What a jerk. Lisa vowed never to engage Andy again, on anything other than topics
that pertained directly to their jobs.

  Chapter 17

  Living Hell

  Darkstream had devoted an entire section of the Omega Quadrant to training and housing its security forces, with several floors filled with equipment, gyms, obstacle courses, Olympic-size swimming pools, barracks, a shooting range, an arsenal, an infirmary, a mess, and so on.

  Jake filed into the largest gym Darkstream trainees and soldiers had exclusive access to, along with hundreds of other recruits. As they passed through the enormous double doors, they were told to gather in a central, circular expanse, which was the only one devoid of equipment.

  Instructor Gabriel Roach awaited them there.

  “I have limited time to get you battle-ready,” he told them the instant they’d all assembled, his low tone making them all shut up and lean forward so they didn’t miss anything.

  “The Quatro aren’t waiting. Ever since they razed Northshire, they’ve been ramping up their aggression against human settlements all across Eresos. So far, they’ve mostly been focusing their attention on villages that can’t afford Darkstream protection, and they’ve been having a lot of success with that approach. But the board expects them to strike more vital targets soon.”

  Roach paused to let that sink in, and as it did, the recruits around Jake shifted their weight, some of them murmuring to each other.

  “Shut up,” Roach said, and without having to raise his voice, utter silence swept across the gathered trainees. “As I said, we don’t have much time. Darkstream needs a full mech team, staffed only by the best and meant for deployment wherever we’re needed most. And they need it now. Which means that those of you who aren’t already seventy percent of the way to where I need you are going to wash out.” He grinned. “Right now, each of you is telling yourself that it won’t be you. But it will be. I can almost guarantee that it will be you. I do invite you to prove me wrong.”

  Jake felt the corners of his mouth curl back as his jaw set, teeth grinding together.

  It won’t be me. But that was exactly what Roach had just predicted he’d be thinking. I don’t care. It’s not going to be me.

  “There are hundreds of you standing in front of me, gaping like you just walked off a farm. In a sense, a lot of you did, though not in the way humanity’s traditionally conceived of farms.” Roach chuckled. “Sorry. I don’t mean to overtax your brains. Instantly forget any big words I happen to let slip, and remember that of the hundreds of you here today, most of you will wash out. Hell, it’s possible that every one of you will. Even if some of you don’t—even if some of you really are seventy percent to where I need you—the process of digging deep and finding that extra thirty percent is going to basically kill you. That’s a promise.

  “The training will be grueling, children. Darkstream needs fresh recruits to pilot the mechs they’re developing, and they need them soon. Unfortunately, the only place to get individuals suited for the job is the system’s lucid leaderboards. To succeed there, you need to have the exquisite reflexes and situational awareness it takes to pilot mechs. Many of the games you played in lucid involved mechs. This is because Darkstream has been developing them for a while, and it anticipated the need for pilots a long time ago.”

  Roach shook his head, smiling widely at them, his forehead bunching in ever-increasing amusement. “I’m sure what I just said went straight to your heads. Suddenly, you think you’re a bunch of hotshots, don’t you? I tore you down and then I built you back up, right?” Terse laughter. “Wrong. Just because you’re good at Darkstream’s video games does not mean you’re going to make it through what I’m planning to subject you to. It’s my job to find among you individuals who can be molded into soldiers who won’t choke at the first taste of battle. To do that, I intend to kick your asses around and around this station. I intend to make your lives a living hell. And that’s just to start.”

  Chapter 18

  We’re All Starting to Hate

  Chief Gabriel Roach was a man of his word.

  By the end of the first day, Jake felt like someone really had kicked his ass.

  By the end of the first week, he felt like he was going to die.

  He’d always considered himself fairly fit. Developing comets with his father, using just the equipment Darkstream leased to them—it involved a lot of physical labor.

  Sometimes, during rare visits to Hub to see his mother and Sue-Anne, or more frequent supply stops at various outposts in the Belt, Jake would challenge other guys his age to arm wrestle, or just straight up wrestle. He’d rarely lost, though he’d always been a pretty good sport about winning, in his opinion.

  Roach’s version of PT involved moving from exercise to strenuous exercise without stopping. At the beginning of each day, he laid out their training schedule, and it was always daunting, but Jake quickly learned that it never encompassed everything they would do that day.

  For Roach, everything that happened was an excuse to pile on extra PT.

  If someone faltered, he assigned the entire group more PT. If someone complained, that was at least sixty minutes of added PT. Once, Roach said that one of the recruits looked funny, and as a result, the entire group earned two hours of extra PT.

  Jogging ten miles, jogging backwards ten miles, push-ups, burpees, pistol squats—Roach prided himself on constantly hitting them with new exercises that none of them had heard of before. He wasn’t happy until someone collapsed.

  When someone did, that meant more PT.

  In class, they were taught tactics and strategy, insertion and evacuation techniques, weapon use and maintenance, explosives, unit formation, Quatro anatomy and strategy—such as it was. They spent a fair bit of time on the shooting range, as well, with Roach ridiculing them whenever they missed.

  They were also shown vids of every Quatro attack that had ever occurred.

  When he was shown the first vid, of the recent attack on Northshire, Jake was struck by the savagery of the aliens, as well as their complete lack of mercy.

  The aliens chased down men, women, children, the elderly, the infirm, the disabled. It didn’t seem to matter to the Quatro, who rent their victims with scythe-like claws and tore at them with teeth like knives, or simply tossed them into buildings using powerful jaws.

  During that first vid, he happened to glance at Roach, standing on the side of the classroom.

  Even with the lights dimmed, Jake could see how Roach’s eyes burned, and the way his jaw protruded with tension. Roach hated the Quatro; that much was clear.

  Jake was coming to hate them, too. He’d never hated anything or anyone in his life—not really. Not true hatred. But after watching those vids, he hated the Quatro.

  Then, suddenly, something began to bother him. Other than the Northshire attack, there really wasn’t very much footage of Quatro attacking human settlements. Roach just rotated the same four or five, showing them in different orders, cycling them again and again.

  But what really stoked animosity toward the aliens were the lucid sims Roach had them run, where the Quatro were consistently the enemy.

  Their mission was always to defend a helpless village from the Quatro, or to stop a Quatro attack already in progress, or to rescue a group of children the Quatro had captured, or to contend with some other atrocity the aliens had committed.

  The sims had the greatest effect—even greater than the vids. While lucid, Jake had to watch the Quatro tear his fellow recruits apart again and again.

  Several times, he experienced a Quatro savaging him, tearing at his guts, jaws coming away with glistening intestines dangling.

  And because the human brain consistently mistook dreams for reality, the fear was always real. And the pain.

  And the hatred.

  During lunch, halfway through his third week of training, Jake commented on it to those sitting around him in the Recruits’ Mess.

  “We’re all starting to hate the Quatro, but it’s mostly because of what they do to us in lucid, right? I hate the
m. I can’t help it, because of what they’ve done to me and what I’ve seen them do to my friends. But the hatred is coming from simulated events. They didn’t actually happen, not any of it. Doesn’t that bother anyone else?”

  “There are vids, too,” said Ash, a trainee around his age. She had a thin nose, blue eyes, and short, wheat-colored hair. “The way they act in the sims is what they’re really like. We know that because of the vids.”

  “But there are only five vids, tops,” Jake said. “How many times have humans attacked Quatro dens? We haven’t seen any vids of us attacking them. I mean, if they want me to fight an enemy, fine, but are these tricks really necessary?”

  Ash shook her head, and started to speak, but she trailed off, her gaze fixed on a point over Jake’s head.

  He turned to see Gabriel Roach standing behind him, arms crossed, eyes ablaze.

  Jake felt certain he could actually feel the color draining from his face. But Roach didn’t say a thing. He just stood there, for at least a minute, until at last he walked away without a single word.

  “I’d watch your back,” Ash told Jake, eyebrows hiked up her forehead. “That looked like a death glare to me.”

  The first couple of weeks had seen only a trickle of wash-outs, but there was something about that third week. Seventy trainees quit that week, over twenty percent of the total.

  On the evening of Jake’s conversation with Ash in the Recruits’ Mess, Roach suddenly announced that he wanted to test how far their conditioning had come. He brought them to the gym and told them to line up in ranks, fists locked at their sides.

  “Tighten your abdominals,” Roach told the first recruit he came across, giving him only a second to do so before striking him in the gut.

  The recruit grunted, falling back a step.

  “Needs work,” Roach said. “A lot of work.” He moved to the next recruit. “Tighten your abdominals.” Then came the blow.

  Roach worked his way down the first line, and then the next. Jake wasn’t totally clear on how this tested their conditioning. He supposed having a strong core was part of it, but the regular PT should have already given the chief a much better idea of their conditioning overall.