Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  None of them brought up any of that, of course. But Gabe could see it in them. And he recognized it in himself.

  That wasn’t all. Gabe had also come to find that piloting the mechs had a disquieting distancing effect. The dream, which had been meant to increase immersion in battle, was instead causing him to feel detached from its effects, its consequences.

  The dream made him feel justified in everything he did, by default. That was more or less how he’d always felt anyway, but now he didn’t even bother to examine his own actions, and that was starting to get to him. Especially during the fleeting moments he spent outside of the mech, which seemed to be characterized by a lot more self-reflection than when he was inside the thing.

  And so, he’d wanted his team to take time in their own bodies, to reconnect with their humanity.

  But the quads’ arrival had dashed that hope. Now, they’d have to spend weeks more in the mechs, weeks full of long days of journeying. No one else could pilot the mechs for them—no one else was authorized to, for good reason.

  Until the quads were safely aboard the space elevator and on their way to Valhalla, Oneiri Team would live inside their mechs.

  Chapter 3

  Classic Conspiracy Theorist

  As she walked, Lisa sighted down the barrel of her assault rifle at the ground.

  I need to calibrate the sight again.

  She’d had to do that several times since leaving Alex’s wilderness for the confines of Habitat 2. The planet had given her a souvenir in the form of its blue dust, which had filled every crevice of her body, clothes, and weaponry. She’d dealt with the first two with multiple washings, but her guns were posing a stiffer challenge. She’d probably have to dismantle and clean them yet again.

  Tessa had joined Lisa on her rounds, patrolling the streets of Habitat 2. With drug crime either eliminated or driven deep underground in the wake of Daybreak’s defeat, she didn’t expect to encounter much that needed her attention, but that wasn’t really what this was about.

  After what they’d been subjected to, living under the thumb of Quentin Cooper and his goons for two months, the people of Habitat 2 needed to see that Darkstream military personnel were patrolling the city keeping them safe.

  Unfortunately, right now, all they had in the way of Darkstream military personnel were Lisa and Tessa, and Tessa didn’t even work for the company anymore. In fact, she loathed it.

  “Have you given any more thought to what Samuel Dalton said?” Tessa said. “About Darkstream allowing Daybreak to take over Habitat 2?”

  Lisa frowned. She hadn’t meant for Tessa to find out about that. The guards that had brought Dalton before her had been sworn to secrecy, but they’d blabbed about the interview to Andy Miller anyway, because they knew Andy was a friend of hers and they figured it wouldn’t matter.

  Andy, God love him, had told Tessa.

  “I’m afraid I don’t consider the words of a criminal enough to indict my employer, Tessa.” Lisa checked down an alley as she spoke. Nothing. As usual. “I’m going to need more than that to go against the organization that everyone’s lives are built on, in the Steele System.”

  “Oh, that’s classic,” Tessa said. “Blind yourself to immense danger, because seeing the truth would be too inconvenient. Yes. I do love it when history repeats itself.”

  Lisa decided to change the subject. “Have you been talking to any of the Quatro lately?”

  “A little. They’re not much for chitchat. That said, they seem to like us a lot more than they like the rest of humanity.”

  Lisa nodded. “That’s for sure.” She sniffed, double-taking at a darkened window, which she felt pretty sure was the one she’d peered out from during her temporary imprisonment in a basement, the day Daybreak had taken over. “Rug keeps pushing to go to Eresos. She thinks they can convince their fellow Quatro to stop attacking settlements.”

  Tessa barked laughter, at that. “Rug doesn’t even know why they’re fighting. Besides, the way Rug treats most everyone in Habitat 2, I would have thought she’d want the Eresos Quatro to kill as many humans as possible.”

  Lisa turned from her study of a shadowy doorway to look at Tessa. “That isn’t fair.”

  “I know. It was a joke. A poor one.”

  “All right.”

  “Bottom line about going to Eresos is, we have no way of doing it. I mean, we could head out toward the space elevator, I guess, but I’m not keen to get blue dust in every orifice again.”

  “Me neither,” said Lisa. “Either way, Habitat 2 needs us. We can’t leave now.”

  “We’ll have to leave eventually, though,” Tessa said. It was her turn to study Lisa’s face. “If you’re going to keep the promise you made to the Quatro, that is.”

  “I intend to. I’ll figure out a way to do it. Just not yet.”

  That seemed to satisfy the white-haired woman, and she nodded, causing her hair to sway. “Good. I’m not eager to go to Eresos, myself. Not sure I like the look of the new toys Darkstream’s acquired for itself.”

  Lisa said nothing to that, reluctant to criticize her employer at all in front of the older woman. Although the images floating around the system net, of Darkstream mechs walking the streets of Plenitos, certainly were striking. Lisa wasn’t sure she wanted to meet one, either.

  I’m just glad they’re with us and not against us.

  A notification appeared in the upper-right of Lisa’s vision, informing her she had a vid message. She played it right away—her interface’s transparency settings were high enough to allow her to view media as she walked.

  It was Commander Laudano, finally responding to her message asking for authorization to offer leniency to Daybreak prisoners in exchange for information on Quentin Cooper. Lisa had gone ahead and offered that leniency anyway; this message would let her know whether she could actually make good on the offer.

  “Do not under any circumstances grant leniency to any of those prisoners,” Laudano said.

  Oops, Lisa thought.

  Commander Laudano went on: “They violated the peace and prosperity of Habitat 2, and they are to be punished proportionately. Darkstream will soon send a battalion of soldiers to administer justice and also to secure Habitat 2. Laudano out.”

  Though she felt a little sheepish at being denied permission to do what she’d already done, she didn’t feel too badly about breaking her promise to the people who’d subjugated her friends and neighbors.

  Lisa forwarded the message to Tessa.

  “See?” she said once the older woman had watched it. “Darkstream isn’t evil, Tessa. They clearly plan to be pretty hard on these Daybreak jerks. This isn’t the sort of message a company sends who wants to turn people into slaves.”

  “I still don’t trust them,” Tessa said, and fell silent.

  Shaking her head, Lisa decided not to press the issue.

  Tessa’s a classic conspiracy theorist. She only accepts information that supports her beliefs about the company she hates.

  Lisa just hoped the former soldier wouldn’t cause any trouble, once the Darkstream battalion arrived.

  Chapter 4

  Valiant

  Jake plodded across the hard-packed terrain, his mech towering above most of the battalion that rolled through Eresos’ wilderness at a steady clip.

  They’d long ago left Plenitos behind, and now they pushed through the woods that surrounded the planet’s largest city for miles. Every so often, they had to stop to avoid one of the giant Amblers patrolling the Gatherer paths. The battalion had more than enough artillery to take an Ambler down, but they’d take significant, unnecessary damage in doing so.

  Eventually, the woods would give way to the great Barrens that stretched between Plenitos and Ingress, where the space elevator was located.

  Their forced march didn’t leave much room for chatter, but even so, Jake couldn’t help but notice the almost complete lack of rapport between Oneiri Team, the remnants of the Force Multipliers, and the Pl
enitos garrison soldiers, who’d been authorized to abandon their posts in favor of preventing the quads from falling into the hands—paws—of the Quatro.

  I would have expected a little more camaraderie between brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

  It didn’t seem like a good sign that the three groups treated each other with vague suspicion.

  I guess we all come from different places, with different short-term goals.

  The garrison soldiers were used to staying in one place, digging in, and protecting the inhabitants.

  This long march probably has them agitated.

  Indeed, they were the ones who seemed to snap at each other the most, with voices that raised with little prompting.

  The reserve battalion, the Force Multipliers, were used to going wherever the company needed them, applying extra force to meet the company’s goals in a given sector.

  And the MIMAS pilots were the newbies, favored by the company, and walking around in what probably seemed like newfangled contraptions to the other soldiers.

  The only thing that unites us is that we’re all paid to further Darkstream’s position and profits.

  But they had a higher aim, whether anyone acknowledged it or not. Sometimes, Jake wished they would talk about it more: by keeping the quads from the Quatro, they were sparing the people of Eresos untold suffering.

  Ash drew up beside him, subvocalizing to keep their conversation private out of habit. “Hey,” she said. “Have you been browsing the system net at all with your implant?”

  “A little bit,” he confessed. It wasn’t encouraged to browse the net while operating a MIMAS, but all they were doing was walking, and he knew he could handle both.

  “Did you see that they found Quatro on Alex, too? Wearing pressure suits and everything?”

  “Yeah. Just full of surprises, aren’t they?”

  “Indeed. I can’t wait to find out how they ended up there. Pretty scary, to think the ones here might have access to that level of technology. Though, you know, I’m not sure Darkstream hates the Quatro as much as they claim to.”

  Jake glanced at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, look at Ingress. The city has been trying to sell off the tunnel borer they used to dig their walls, just to cover the rising costs of their contract with Darkstream. If they ever need to do repairs on those walls, they’ll be screwed.”

  Though he nodded, Jake didn’t answer. It seemed like too much to process, just now. The constant marching was getting to him already, and he just wanted to be alone inside his own head for a bit.

  Of course, the battalion couldn’t walk indefinitely—they had to stop to eat, and to sleep.

  If it weren’t for those necessities, Chief Roach probably would never have permitted them to take the time to hold a funeral for Tommy.

  “We can hold one,” he said when Beth Arkanian broached the subject. “It’ll mean less sleep, but we can hold one.”

  So they did.

  If nothing else, the funeral brought them together—Oneiri Team, the Force Multipliers, and the Plenitos garrison, all gathered in a broad clearing where rays of sun broke through the forest canopy to kiss the ground.

  It was also one of the few times Oneiri Team were outside their mechs, though they’d left them nearby, in case of attack.

  To Jake, it felt odd not to be encased in metal and artillery, encased in the dream. It was a little exhilarating, but also a little terrifying. The track marks along his forearm caught his eye, where, whenever he needed to get out of his mech, the machine injected him with the antagonist to the sedative he used to enter lucid. That made his stomach shift uncomfortably.

  Everyone bore as a mark of shame the fact that they’d been forced to abandon Tommy’s mangled corpse deep within the Quatro tunnels, but given the circumstances, it didn’t seem likely his body would ever be recovered.

  Nothing to send back to his parents but a letter of condolence.

  “Tommy never got a nickname,” Beth said to those gathered. “Which is unacceptable, to be honest. He fought in the Battle of Ingress, contributing to a victory that saved that city, and he helped us retake the streets of Plenitos after the Quatro broke through her walls. But we never did him the honor of marking him as our brother by granting him a nickname. We were too caught up in the turmoil and stress of battle.”

  Beth cast her gaze over her fellows, over all of the Darkstream soldiers gathered in the clearing. “Tommy would probably forgive us for it. He wasn’t one to hold a grudge. Even so, I still think it’s unacceptable.”

  “I agree,” Ash put in. “He’s the one who gave me my nickname. Steam. Even in the heat of battle, he took the time to acknowledge my contribution, to recognize me as his sister-in-arms. Where else will we get our nicknames, if not from battle?”

  “Exactly,” Beth said, nodding, smiling at Ash. “That’s why I’m proposing that we give Tommy a nickname now. He was a true brother. He stood by us, and he kept us all in his heart. He led the charge into the Quatro tunnels. Does anyone have an idea for a nickname that would do his memory justice?”

  “Hero,” Ash said.

  Jake stepped forward. “Valiant.”

  They put it to a vote, and Valiant won out. After that, they held a ceremonial internment, with the dirt of Eresos shoveled symbolically into a shallow, empty grave.

  When they departed the clearing, they left behind a sturdy cross in their wake, driven into the ground by the powerful hands of a MIMAS mech.

  Chapter 5

  Two-Legged Murderers

  He stalked through the wilderness, having ranged ahead of his fellows.

  A breeze rose, and he paused, lifting his nose to learn what it carried.

  There. The faint stench of the enemy. Stronger than it had been the last time he’d detected it.

  We’re getting closer.

  It was curious, how time could change your relationship with a smell. When he’d first breathed in the scent of the two-legged beasts that now infested this planet’s surface, it hadn’t seemed especially offensive. Now, he found it repulsive.

  Back in the Home Systems—so many years ago, so many stars away—he’d been among those calling loudest for his drift to leave.

  And it had worked. Now, here they were, the Grounded, reduced to a primitive, brutish life, hunted by aliens much smaller than they.

  He took responsibility for that. He didn’t know whether atonement was possible, but either way, he felt determined to better his drift’s lot.

  The memory of sailing through the stars remained vivid for him—probably because he revisited it every day. Sometimes, he wondered whether his starlust hadn’t been a bigger factor in his desire to leave than the freedom his drift would gain by doing so.

  Of course, it hadn’t been the two-legs who’d ended their flight through the stars. No, that had been the work of the Interlopers. They’d smashed open his drift’s starships, extracting them from the vessels bodily, and destroying everything that lent their lives comfort and meaning.

  That done, the Interlopers had stranded them on this planet, to become the Grounded. They separated each crew by hundreds of miles, sometimes thousands. In doing so, they turned a single, unified drift into many.

  Why?

  He still didn’t understand it. His species had never encountered the Interlopers before. The rest of his species—the majority, still back in the Home Systems, which his drift had abandoned—they had warred with the Pyleen for the better part of a decade, but the Pyleen were not known to have allies.

  What had the Interlopers gained from destroying their ships and scattering them all across this world? What had they gained by turning them into the Grounded?

  That had only been the start of their woes. The two-legged aliens had arrived shortly after, driving his now-splintered drift deep underground, denying them access to the resource-bearing machines that were the planet’s only original occupants.

  Except, he’d learned that not all the two-legs were a
like. Another group of them had approached his drift very recently, shortly after an attack by the others. This new group dressed in more motley garb, and not the uniforms worn by the murderers.

  The shabbily dressed two-legged drift came bearing arms, but not to use against the Grounded. Instead, they’d left them artillery—crates and crates of it—for the Grounded to use. Then, the two-legs had departed, without any attempt to communicate.

  Their behavior had confused many among the Grounded, but they’d dragged their offerings underground nevertheless. As always, their powers returned to them in full force as they progressed deeper into the earth, and their superconducting brains allowed them to extract the weapons and affix them to their backs using great metal bands, which they bent and twisted to their will.

  As his splintered drift armed for war, they’d sent out messengers to the other Grounded—to every other fractured drift whose location they knew. There were almost certainly many drifts of Grounded whose locations they didn’t know, in caves and tunnels elsewhere on the planet. But the local ones had been enough to form a massive host, ready to visit havoc on the two-legs that had attacked them in their homes.

  The Grounded’s ability to manipulate metals was significantly diminished when they went aboveground, but it was enough to pull the trigger of a gun—or of a rocket launcher.

  In the end, it hadn’t been enough to defeat the two-legs, who’d sent mighty machines into battle; robots that towered over even the Grounded. Those had driven his drift back into their tunnels…but then the masters of the machines had made a mistake. They got out of their walking weapons, and they followed the Grounded underground.

  There, they’d encountered his true might. He’d been the one to kill one of the machine masters, and after that, he’d chased the two-legs to the surface. In the battle that followed, he killed several more, though he’d had his right ear shot off in the exchange.