The Quatro mech seemed to snarl up at her, and its back morphed to form what appeared to be a giant cannon. The cannon produced a savage blast of energy, which connected with Ash’s mech in midair, causing her to flip over and over until she collided with the ground.
“Retreat,” she rasped, the pain almost too great for her to speak. “Fall back, now. We need to wait for the others.”
She found her footing again, and then she sprinted toward Ingress, barely checking to see whether the other mechs were following.
Some leader you turned out to be.
Her heavy machine gun still lay somewhere on the hillside, she realized.
It’s gone.
Chapter 44
Training
Lisa’s militia made their way through the streets with as much speed as they could manage, though she’d trained them well enough that they stayed methodical, checking and double-checking blind spots as well as anywhere an enemy could be hiding. The places they couldn’t check, such as the balconies that occasionally overhung Habitat 2’s streets, they remained constantly vigilant of.
They encountered a Darkstream squad, and Lisa’s people didn’t hesitate. They didn’t glance at her for confirmation, and they certainly didn’t ask her over the militia-wide channel for permission to engage.
Instead, they met the perplexed expressions of the Darkstream soldiers by raising their firearms to sight briefly down the barrels and opening fire.
The entire squad of Darkstream soldiers went down without firing a single shot.
Lisa could scarcely believe it. The sight of a group of civilians out in the streets must have confused them. They didn’t consider us a threat. Highly unlikely we’ll get that kind of advantage again. But still…
Trained Darkstream soldiers should not have taken for granted that the people of Habitat 2 would be toothless.
Lisa flashed back to the confines of the beetle as she, Andy, and Tessa traveled across the wilderness of Alex, back when Tessa had first called Lisa out for…well, for being useless, due to totally inadequate Darkstream training.
Tessa had accused the company of relying too heavily on lucid for training their soldiers, and she’d called lucid unsuited to the purpose anyway, without the presence of an experienced trainer who could calibrate a trainee’s implant so that each lucid simulation accurately reflected her actual abilities.
Over the months that followed, Tessa had proved herself right, simply by helping Lisa to improve drastically under her tutelage.
Lisa forced herself back to the present. “Stay sharp,” she said over the wide channel. “Don’t get cocky just because we swept one engagement. The next group we meet will shoot back. I can guarantee that.”
But they got lucky, and they didn’t encounter either Darkstream or Daybreak operatives on their way to the beetle bay.
Not so, inside the bay itself. Lisa’s M-level clearance still gave her access to almost every security feed in the city, and she patched the view of the vehicle bay through to her soldiers’ implants.
Another memory: this one from before being cooped up inside the beetle with Andy and Tessa. She flashed back to the three of them creeping through Habitat 2, doing their best to avoid the fighting that still raged on between Daybreak and Darkstream.
They’d reached their destination: a different beetle bay from the one Lisa and her militia would attack today. Tessa had told her to wait outside while she went in and dealt with the trio of Daybreak goons inside.
Things were different, today. This time, there were a dozen Darkstream soldiers inside the vehicle bay, and when her militia detonated the breaching charge, blowing open the door, it was Lisa that tossed a flashbang and then followed it inside.
The flashbang appeared to have disoriented most of the twelve soldiers, but three of them must have spotted it in time to take action to mitigate its effects.
Whatever they’d done, they were prepared to fire on Lisa soon after she entered, and in response, she ran for the nearest beetle while her people poured into the bay after her. Both Lisa and the next two soldiers executed covering fire that saw her safely to the protection of the vehicle.
She didn’t stop there—that’s what they would have expected. Instead, she circled around the vehicle, finding one disoriented Darkstream operative behind it and dispatching her with a point-blank bullet to the temple.
Next, she encountered a man just recovering from the flashbang’s effects, who was back-on to her.
Lisa didn’t hesitate, squeezing the trigger with her muzzle pointed at the back of his neck. He crumpled to the floor.
“Clear.” It was Tessa, subvocalizing across the militia-wide channel.
That meant they needed Lisa back near the entrance, where the controls were located for the airlock, which was built big enough to allow the passage of the bulky beetles.
Once Lisa reached the controls, she used her biometrics to open the outer door, while keeping an eye on the vid feed that showed the airlock’s interior.
A few seconds later, she closed the outer door, repressurized the airlock, and opened the wide portal that led into the beetle bay.
Rug entered, wearing her form-fitting blue pressure suit, with two energy weapons affixed to the shoulders. Flanking her were four other Quatro—two on each side.
Lisa smiled down on them. “It’s good to see you,” she called. Then she closed the inner door, depressurized the airlock, and opened the outer door for the next five aliens to enter.
Chapter 45
A Monster or a Coward
Across the plains, Gabe saw Oneiri Team rushing foolishly to engage the force on the hilltop, comprised of Red Company fighters, Quatro, and quads.
He’d been toying with the idea of establishing contact with the descending space elevator. He knew Darkstream would have sent a reserve battalion to deal with the deteriorating situation on Eresos, and he assumed whoever was in command of it would be there, enjoying a leisurely ride down while the MIMAS mechs struggled against impossible odds below.
But Oneiri’s mad rush at the enemy left no time for chitchat.
Or does it?
Keeping his distance from the enemy for as long as he could, Gabe circled the hill at a wide remove, running at full speed, until he judged he was directly opposite Oneiri’s angle of attack.
Around the time he figured they’d made contact with the enemy, he rushed up the hill as quickly as he could.
It was just as he’d expected. The mercenaries had arrayed themselves to confront the Darkstream mechs, leaving just the Quatro on the hilltop to guard the tunnel mouth.
He peered at them with as little of himself exposed as possible, his alien mech changing color to match the terrain, a camouflaging function that he hadn’t anticipated. Then again, he hadn’t anticipated much of anything about this mech.
He conducted everything through the dream, now—he dreamed his entire life, a process he knew was facilitated by his implant. But he no longer had access to its interface.
Instead, he simply willed what he wanted it to do, and it happened. At present, he wanted to speak to the commander of the reserve force aboard that space elevator, and Captain Arkady Black appeared before him.
Even now, the fact that the captain stood in full view of the enemy made Gabe’s throat tighten, until he recalled that Black was visible only to him.
“So, you’re the one they slated to command this fool’s errand,” Gabe said.
With that, he left his cover, willing his arms to become massive energy cannons, both which began to pelt the unclad Quatro with truncated bolts of light. The force of the massless ordnance blasted the aliens off their feet, one by one.
Arkady Black ran beside Gabe, easily keeping pace, inside the dream. “What is it you want, Roach? I’m only humoring you because I have basically nothing to do aboard this elevator. I’m given to understand you’ve gone postal.”
You have the fight of your life ahead of you, and you have nothing to do? “When
we spoke at Plenitos, you told me I was headed for a fall. Well, it’s here, Black—for both of us.”
Soon after neutralizing his fifth Quatro, Gabe succeeded in getting the attention of one of the quads. It rushed out of the tunnel mouth, barreling toward him, eyes aglow, shoulders shifting and morphing to prepare something nasty for him.
Gabe flung himself forward, his own mech shifting radically, gathering together to form a great wheel with serrated edges. The wheel he had become landed just before the alien, spinning straight over it, laying it open down the middle. Gabe’s edge almost sheared through to the Quatro inside the quad, but it twisted aside at the last second, metal whirling and transforming to enable the maneuver.
Instantly, Gabe’s wheel resumed a humanoid form, and he caught himself on the ground, kneeling, aiming a massive gun that took shape as he steadied it on his other arm.
This time, a single cannonball emerged, knocking the quad clean off the hilltop and down to the slope below.
“Be more specific, Roach,” Black said from beside him. “What do you mean by a fall?”
Gabe turned to confront the next quad, flattening himself close to the ground to avoid an energy blast it had sent his way.
“Do you have fuel air explosives on that elevator?”
Black glanced at Gabe sharply. “Fuel air explosives are not authorized for use on—”
Gabe sprang several meters into the air, over the charging quad, and fired parts of himself at his foe at high speed. A jagged spear skewered the quad, pinning it to the ground, and the moment Gabe landed, he sprinted toward his immobilized foe.
The Quatro managed to free itself by the time Gabe neared, bounding away to the left. Gabe summoned the parts of himself he’d used for ordnance, and it walked, flipped, and rolled toward him. When the fragments reached him, they rejoined him, and they became one once more.
“I didn’t ask whether you’re authorized to use them, Black,” Gabe snarled. “I asked whether you have them with you, and I don’t know why I bothered, because I already know that you do. I’ve been around long enough, I’m well-connected enough, to know that major Darkstream missions always have fuel air bombs on hand, and it insults my intelligence for you to suggest otherwise.”
Four other quads had just appeared from the mouth of the tunnel, and they were now attempting to surround Gabe.
He turned and fled down the hillside. Inside the dream, Black also fled, running without exertion.
“The Quatro command the high ground,” Gabe said as he ran. “We can’t afford to engage them there, and so we have to summon them elsewhere. To do that, we’ll attack what they must defend: the tunnel. You need to dig down to it and fill it with every fuel air explosive you have. If you fail to do that, the city will be lost.”
“We aren’t authorized to use fuel air explosives, Roach.”
“Are you authorized to lose Ingress? I told you, Black. The fall is here, and you need to choose, between defeat and disgrace. I’m leading these quads from their hilltop, for as long as they’ll follow me. That will lessen the pressure enough for you to do what needs to be done. I only have to look at the elevator to see you’ve almost arrived on the surface. The timing works out, as long as you don’t squander the opportunity I’ve given you.” As he ran, Gabe turned to lock eyes with Black. “The question you have to ask yourself is whether you want history to view you as a monster or a coward.”
Gabe evicted Black from the dream, then. He was tired of looking at him, and he’d already done what he could to try to persuade the man. If only simpering would convince him, then he would not be convinced, because Gabe did not simper.
Chapter 46
Supposed to Be the Best
Jake made liberal use of his MIMAS’ launch capacity to maneuver around the comet, evading the alien mech’s charges as well as its ordnance. He wasn’t too concerned about fuel reserves, considering the low gravity meant very little had to be expended to displace himself.
A miscalculation led to getting hit by an energy blast from his enemy, causing him to flip away into space, his stomach a hard knot of pain.
Finally, he managed to stabilize and rocket back toward the comet. But the alien mech hadn’t wasted time positioning itself for Jake’s return. The moment he landed, it drove its hand, which had morphed to form a spike, into Jake’s chest.
Kicking out swiftly with his left foot, Jake used it to boost away in order to minimize the impact of the mech’s blow. To avoid getting impaled.
The maneuver resulted in his feet leaving the comet once more, and he just accepted that, putting more distance between him and his enemy by opening fire with both rotary autocannons.
The alien mech leapt at him, but this time, a Banshee missile from the Javelin rocketed into it, shunting it aside and detonating. It was the mech’s turn to flip end over end through space, its side blasted open, though when Jake zoomed in he saw that it was repairing itself rapidly.
In the dream, Captain Bronson appeared on the comet’s surface, glaring up at Jake. “I thought you were supposed to be the best!” he barked.
“Uh…well, if you look at my lucid scores—”
“I don’t care about your lucid scores. Right now, I need you to get these things off of my destroyer! I’ve already told Engineering to reprogram the point defense turrets so that they don’t shoot down your ordnance.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bronson out.”
The captain vanished, and Jake used his launch thrusters to put the comet between himself and the alien mech. That done, he spun around while suspended in space, so that he faced the Javelin and the machines that crawled all over it, ripping up its hull.
The MIMAS augmented its user’s vision dramatically, and Jake used that now to zoom in on the ship and draw a bead on one of the little metal critters.
He fired a rocket, which screamed across the black expanse between him and the destroyer.
His target skittered aside, and the rocket hit the destroyer’s hull, tearing a gaping hole in her. The explosion seared the enemy robot, too, but it seemed no worse for wear.
“No rockets,” Bronson yelled, reappearing right beside Jake, the agitation in his voice mounting. “They’re not a good idea even if they do hit!”
“Sorry, sir,” Jake choked out.
He reached behind his back to detach his heavy machine gun, swinging it around and zooming in to target the next robot.
The alien mech collided with him from behind, sending the heavy machine gun flying away through space.
Jake struggled to turn in the thing’s iron grip, with no success. Then, he remembered a trick he’d used during his first encounter with the Quatro. He let a grenade roll out of his launcher, without actually launching it.
It exploded, and waves of agony crashed over Jake. But it seemed to take the AI, or whatever was animating the alien mech, by surprise, and its grip loosened enough for Jake to wrench free and rocket toward his heavy machine gun.
He caught it, flipped around, and retargeted the tiny robot he’d aimed for before, which was making its way toward one of the destroyer’s main engines.
This time, the robot disintegrated under the machine gun’s armor-piercing rounds.
Got one.
The alien mech was coming at him again, and Jake boosted away from it—closer to the destroyer.
He let loose with a healthy helping of rockets, targeting his adversary. The enemy mech managed to evade most of them, but one took it in the center of its chest, the fluid metal surface peeling away, presumably trying to mitigate the damage. A second rocket hit the alien mech full in the face.
“Like that?” Jake said from inside the dream, his success sending a thrill through him.
Something hit him from behind, tearing at the surface of his MIMAS.
One of the robots. It left the destroyer!
Jake reached behind him with his right hand, but he couldn’t manage to reach the little jerk. Then he tried with his left, catchi
ng the thing’s ankle and yanking it in front of him where it squirmed to get free, metal claws swiping at Jake’s face.
He grabbed the thing’s arm with his free hand and ripped it clean in two.
Nuisance. Throwing both halves at the alien mech, he turned to pick off more of the robotic devils.
Jake managed to neutralize three more before turning to find the other mech recovered from his earlier salvo and barreling through the void, straight at him.
The alien mech connected with Jake’s MIMAS, sending it backward. Several long seconds later, both mechs crashed into the Javelin, and Jake felt the hull buckle beneath him.
Chapter 47
Defensive Formation
When they reached Ingress’ walls, Oneiri Team met Arkady Black and the rest of the Darkstream battalion emerging from the city, accompanied by what appeared to be an enormous tunnel borer.
When he saw the mechs approach, Black gave a self-satisfied nod. “Over-reliance on those contraptions has sent you away with your tails between your legs again, I see.”
The sky flashed red with Ash’s anger. “Sir, you’re the one who ordered us to jump from the elevator and engage the enemy by ourselves. You should know that the MIMAS mechs aren’t at their best simply going it alone, unsupported, just as we never deploy a force consisting only of tanks. The mechs work best when working together with a battalion of varied composition.”
Black’s graying mustache twitched as he returned her stare, his neck craning to meet her mech’s gaze.
“You’re right,” he said at last. “I’ve let my pride get the better of me, and I’m not offering an analysis that’s fair or justified. I apologize.”
“Apology accepted, sir.”
“Now, a short while ago I spoke with Chief Roach, and—”
“You were in contact with the chief?” Ash exclaimed before she could stop herself.
“That’s what I just said. He had a decent idea: start digging down to intercept the enemy’s tunnel. It should be fairly straightforward to anticipate the tunnel’s trajectory, and we can confirm with step-frequency radar. Once we reach their tunnel, we’ll uh…fill it with fuel air explosives.”
Mech Wars: The Complete Series Page 36
