Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  The two-legs had regained the advantage once they’d climbed back inside their machines. But something changed when strange objects fell from the sky…something that caused the two-legged murderers to beat a hasty retreat, instead of lingering in the area to torment the Grounded further.

  I mean to find out what that something was.

  Whatever it had been, it clearly frightened the two-legs. And anything that frightened them had to be good for his drift.

  He took responsibility for what his drift had been reduced to. He felt determined to better his drift’s lot.

  It seemed probable that effort would start with hunting the two-legs and uncovering what had startled them so.

  Having picked up the scent of the two-legged murderers once again, he turned back to notify the other Grounded that accompanied him.

  Chapter 6

  Mating Ritual Initiated

  “Do you really think these humans will try anything with forty-two Quatro walking the streets?” Rug asked, the deep, rich tones of her translator filling the narrow lane.

  A shopkeep sweeping her front step glanced up at the giant alien, face blank, and quickly returned to her work, keeping her head down.

  Either the Quatro aren’t aware of the effect they have on the residents, or they don’t care.

  Lisa’s theory was that they weren’t aware of it, but if they had been, they wouldn’t care anyway.

  “No, not really,” Lisa said, speed-walking out of necessity, to keep up with the royal purple alien. “I actually think crime will probably stay as low as it has been, for a while at least. But seeing a Darkstream operative on patrol is more for their benefit than it is for security. You Quatro may keep the peace in effect, but I’m not sure you exactly instill a sense of—”

  Lisa drew to an abrupt stop. “Come on, Rug. I just remembered that I left a report on my desk that needs to be filed.”

  But that wasn’t the real reason she had for stopping, and as the Quatro peered at the street ahead, Lisa thought the alien probably sensed that. A block away from them, near the entrance to Habitat 2’s only lucid arcade, Andy was standing with a girl several years younger than him. She was shoving him lightly, laughing, the sound of it grating on Lisa’s ears.

  Rug followed her as she turned back the way they’d come, beating a hasty retreat. The Quatro plodded along the narrow lane in silence for a time, other than her heavy footfalls, which produced a considerable amount of sound against the simulated cobble.

  At last, Rug glanced backward toward Andy, which was not a discreet gesture, given the size of the alien’s head. Then, she turned toward Lisa, studying her with onyx eyes.

  “You seem upset by the mating ritual Andy initiated with that human female. Why?”

  “I’m not upset,” Lisa said, a little too tersely.

  “You seem so. Which confuses me. We Quatro make all of our mating decisions based on what serves the drift. We did not reproduce at all after the Meddlers stranded us here, because of our severely limited resources. But a Quatro would have been pleased, in your place, to have witnessed Andy’s act.”

  It was Lisa’s turn to study Rug’s face, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered, as it was usually pretty inscrutable. “Why in Sol would they have been pleased?”

  “Because the female with whom Andy engages in the ritual does not seem likely to attract many mates. By choosing her, Andy would serve your drift by maximizing the number of possible couplings.”

  Lisa laughed, then—a true laugh, which came straight from her belly to ring out in the narrow lane and bounce off the metal buildings.

  “Thanks, Rug.”

  Somehow, the alien had managed to make her feel better. She hadn’t expected that.

  Chapter 7

  Fury and Justice

  A klaxon cut through the night, prompting Jake to claw his way to wakefulness. Blinking rapidly, he refused to let grogginess impede him.

  Deep sleep was not a luxury afforded to soldiers.

  What’s going on?

  The camp was a flurry of movement, with Darkstream soldiers running this way and that, snatching up guns, climbing into tanks, taking positions behind the armored personnel carriers.

  It wasn’t as much information as he would have liked, but it was enough to tell him that he was almost certainly much better off inside his mech than outside it.

  Luckily, he slept underneath the MIMAS mech, between its giant legs.

  Slapping the machine’s calf caused a ramp to detach from its back, popping open to lower itself to the ground. Jake clambered up it, tossing a REM sleep-inducing sedative into his mouth as he did.

  Soon, he was inside the mech, the back sealing up once more as he slipped into the dream.

  Then, he was the mech. He was its massive frame, and he was the artillery that bristled all over it.

  Inside the dream, he was fury and justice and death, in metallic form.

  Now to find some enemies to visit that death upon.

  Charging through the camp, taking care not to knock over any of his fellows, he yelled, “What’s going on?” His voice crashed like thunder.

  A member of the Plenitos garrison turned toward him, white-faced, shaking. “Quatro,” he said, and that was all he had time to get out.

  Behind him, one of the beasts crashed through the trees, heading straight for them. The soldier hunched, raising a wavering shotgun to his face to point in the alien’s general direction.

  Jake stepped over the man, heedless of the shotgun, which looked like little more than a twig from inside the mech—from inside the dream.

  “I’ll handle this,” Jake muttered as both his hands separated into segments, coming to rest against his wrists while twin rotary autocannons spun up, delivering hot death straight into the Quatro’s hide. Dark spurts of blood flew into the night air, and the beast crashed to the ground well before reaching them.

  There were plenty more where that came from, apparently. Before long, it seemed the Quatro were everywhere, some of them charging the human ranks, making liberal use of long bayonets, while others hung back among the trees and returned fire with the various guns strapped to their backs.

  The strangled roar of a rocket leaving its tube sounded nearby, and Jake’s eyes fell on the Quatro that had loosed the projectile, which headed straight toward the soldier still cowering at Jake’s feet.

  Jake ran forward, arms extended as though to catch the rocket. His fractured hands yet rested against his forearms, however, and he continued to fire his autocannons, armor-piercing shells peppering the oncoming missile.

  The rocket exploded a meter away, and its momentum carried the explosion forward, bathing Jake’s arms and head and torso in flame.

  Jake was the mech, and what it felt, he felt. Pain lanced through his body, and he screamed with the agony of it.

  He would not let it stop him, however. Striding forward despite the physical torment, he reached behind his back to detach his heavy machine gun, swinging it around to fire at the Quatro who’d launched the rocket.

  The alien twisted around, desperate to evade the storm of bullets. And it succeeded for a time, the ordnance tearing up trees instead, causing them to explode into hundreds of shards of dry bark.

  Then Jake caught up to it, extending both bayonets, and plunging forward with them.

  The Quatro backed up, so Jake engaged both flamethrowers, directing the streams of fire in the direction where he anticipated the Quatro would go.

  It worked. The creature’s fur caught fire, along with the tree it crouched behind.

  The alien recoiled in pain, but Jake followed, and this time his twin blades found the Quatro’s flesh. The monster slumped to the ground.

  Not taking any time to congratulate himself, he turned back toward the camp, which had descended into chaos during the seconds it had taken him to deal with the rocket-launching Quatro.

  The invaders had infiltrated the human ranks, pushing past them, making dangerous progress toward
the middle, where the personnel carriers were that housed the quadruped mechs.

  Jake dashed toward them, and as he did, he noticed a particularly large Quatro briefly silhouetted against some burning trees. It looked to be missing an ear, and it was making straight for the quads, unnoticed by most of the human defenders, who were locked in furious combat with yet more aliens.

  Jake did notice the beast, and he sprinted toward it, even as it reached the personnel carriers, disappearing behind one of them.

  Seconds later, as Jake rounded the same corner, he saw what had happened: one of the personnel carriers had been blasted open, revealing the high-tech cargo inside.

  The one-eared Quatro stood before the nearest quad, standing perfectly still, in stark contrast to the chaos around it.

  Jake surged forward, right bayonet extended to take the beast in its haunch. But before he could, the quad opened up, its top half rising to admit the alien, who stepped inside it.

  Both halves met once more, and the quad rose up, turning, its eyes aglow.

  The thing’s shoulders morphed, and giant, identical cannons took shape. The next instant, Jake was flying through the air to crash to the ground on his back, his head glancing painfully off a rock. If it had been his own head, he would have died.

  By the time he got up, the quad-piloting Quatro was already halfway to the trees, bellowing wordlessly.

  The other Quatro disengaged, then, turning only to conduct covering fire, to facilitate their retreat.

  Chapter 8

  Adventurous Benders

  Unlike most people who’d accompanied Darkstream to the Steele System, Bob O’Toole had never actually worked for the company.

  He’d been a chartered accountant back in the Milky Way, and he’d invested almost all of his discretionary income in Darkstream shares. That had paid off quite lucratively, for a long time—until the stock fell on hard times, when the company was booted clean out of the galaxy.

  Ah, well. No one had ever said that playing the stock market wasn’t a bit of a gamble.

  Since, to continue benefiting from all that stock he owned, Bob would have to follow Darkstream to a galaxy where humans had never set foot before…well, that’s exactly what he did. And although the economy the company proceeded to set up in the Steele System was much smaller than the Milky Way—yet growing rapidly!—Darkstream was paramount within it, and owning a hell of a lot of company stock was just about the best position for an expatriate accountant past his prime to find himself in.

  Long story short, it meant he had a lot of credits to throw around. He could live anywhere in the Steele System he wanted. He could do anything he wanted. Nothing limited him. Why would it? He was rich!

  And so, with all those riches, with all that limitless opportunity, he’d decided to live in Habitat 2, permanently indoors in the middle of a dusty nowhere, to become an avid alcoholic with the help of Phineas Gage, owner and sole proprietor of the Dusty Bucket.

  That had been fine, for a while: hanging off the end of Gage’s bar and calling out the other patrons whenever he felt like it. Then those Daybreak freaks had taken over, coked out or whatever they were, pushing everyone around and hogging most of the booze for themselves. During those dark months, Bob had to pay top dollar just to buy enough grog to get a good buzz on.

  But with enough credits, one could do anything. Including bribe Daybreak asshats to let him do basically whatever he wanted, like get drunk whenever he felt like it.

  But those asshats had loved to come into the Dusty Bucket and stick their noses in every conversation. Plus, there hadn’t been nearly as many patrons left to make fun of, what with all the slave labor that had gone on at that time.

  So Bob had taken it upon himself to make friends with the nerds of Habitat 2. He used to slip them little nips of brandy or vodka or rum or whiskey or whatever he had on him at the time.

  It hadn’t taken much of the stuff to make the nerds love him, and once they loved him, they’d started doing little favors for him, like hacking the habitat’s security feeds and giving him direct access on his implant, so he could track where the Daybreak goons were at any given time. His favorite nerd, a fellow named Wyatt, even deleted some footage for Bob, of him urinating on Quentin Cooper’s hoverbike during one of his more adventurous benders.

  Yes, getting friendly with the nerds was a fine thing. Almost as good as having a lot of credits, these days. And when that gorgeous brunette Lisa Sato returned with Tessa Notaras and their hairy friends to break Cooper’s hold on the place, Bob had made sure to continue maintaining those friendships. Everyone loved free booze, whether they were living in a druglord’s dystopia or not, so he continued to supply them with it.

  It didn’t take long for them to turn up something juicy for him. Something he could use, something he could take to Lisa Sato as an offering. It didn’t hurt to get on the good side of a Darkstream soldier, no it didn’t, and the fact that she was drop-dead stunning didn’t deter him in the slightest.

  “What do you want, O’Toole?” she asked, her mouth twisted into a grimace as he staggered through the door of her office.

  “I brought you a present,” he mumbled, scratching his backside and trying to remember whether he’d showered today.

  “I’d be incredibly surprised to find myself interested in any present you would care to give me.”

  “Prepare to be surprised!” he said, grinning, and then he fired over the files his nerds had dug up for him.

  “What are these?” Lisa said, frowning slightly as she stared into the space just over Bob’s left shoulder, no doubt reviewing the files on her implant.

  “Messages,” Bob grunted. “Sent from our esteemed former councilman, Leonardo Fiore, to Quentin Cooper himself. Recently. Have a look. He really spills his guts out, in ’em. Tells Cooper all about our security, or lack thereof. Our defenses, such as they are. And especially about the number of Quatro you brought in here. How fearsome their teeth look, and so on, and so on.”

  “Wow,” Lisa said, inclining her head, her raven hair swaying slightly with the movement. “This is just what we need to nail Fiore to the wall.”

  “Well, that’s not all,” Bob said, scowling. “I’d love to see Fiore fingered as much as the next guy, but that isn’t the most important implication of these messages. The most important thing is—”

  “Cooper’s planning to attack Habitat 2. Again.”

  “Uh, yes,” Bob said. “That’s exactly right.”

  “I’m not sure how he proposes to do that, given we killed most of his thugs, and arrested almost all of the rest. But the fact that he thinks he can do it is worrying on its own. Thank you for this, Bob. If there’s any way I can repay you, anything I can do, say the word—just please don’t say something gross.”

  Bob’s grin fizzled. Come to think of it, he had been about to say something Lisa would likely find gross, coming from an old man like him.

  “Ah…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t need anything. Got enough drink to last me three lifetimes, I reckon. I’m good.” He bobbed his head at her, turned unsteadily, and shuffled out of her office.

  Wonder who wants to have a drink with me. He racked his brain, but no one came to mind.

  Probably, a sip of something strong would give him some ideas.

  Chapter 9

  Act like a Soldier

  Jake trudged through what used to be their camp, looking for a way he could help the battalion pull itself back together. Nothing presented itself—nothing for a mech to help with, anyway.

  Everything that had been broken was broken, and both his giant hands and his vast arsenal had been designed for destruction, not rebuilding. Beth, Marco, Richaud, and Ash had already extracted the remaining quad from the ruined personnel carrier, affixing it to the top of one of the tanks.

  Now, it seemed, there was nothing left for the MIMAS mechs to do except to remain alert and on guard, patrolling to protect what had already been stolen.

  I failed
.

  There was no escaping that fact. Jake had been the one to spot the one-eared Quatro making for the personnel carriers—the others had been busy fighting for their lives. Circumstances had assigned him with the task of making sure the Quatro didn’t manage to access one of the quads. But he’d failed. And now, all of Eresos was at risk.

  “Price.” It was Roach, subvocalizing.

  “Sir?”

  “Get over here.”

  Jake’s HUD flashed with Roach’s location, a hundred meters or so past the camp’s perimeter, well within the trees.

  How’d he end up there without anyone noticing?

  With the mech’s long legs and its unrivaled locomotion, he reached Roach in less than a minute, even though he had to jog around the camp to avoid running over anyone, and then he had to weave through the trees to avoid knocking one of those down and making a racket—never a welcome outcome, especially in the wake of a Quatro attack.

  He found Roach sitting on a thick, fallen tree. From the looks of the stump, Roach had cracked the thing off to serve as his mech’s seat. It was odd to see the great war machine in repose.

  Jake saluted. “You wanted to speak with me, sir?” He decided not to ask why Roach had risked straying so far from the camp. Lately, he’d been trying not to question his superior.

  “I want you to take command of Oneiri Team and push on toward Ingress.”

  For a moment, Jake didn’t know what to say to that. “Sir…take command? Plenty of people in the reserve battalion outrank me, and a lot of the garrison soldiers do, too.” He wasn’t sure why that was the first point he raised, but there it was.

  “They can sort themselves out,” Gabe said. “But they don’t understand mechs, and I don’t want them directing you to do anything. I’ll transmit signed orders to that effect.”

  “I take it this means you’re leaving.”

  “Good deduction. I intend to track down the Quatro that stole that quad, and when I find it, I mean to disable it. Do not follow me, and make sure the others don’t, either. That’s an order, Price. I want you to impress that on the others. An order, damn it. I’ll be blocking my transponder from broadcasting my location to you, but I hope that’s an unnecessary measure.”