Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  That done, he fired into Roach’s right cannon, generating an explosion that took out the weapon.

  As Roach staggered back from that attack, Jake surged forward to drive his lance into his enemy’s remaining energy cannon.

  There was a colossal detonation of heat and light that threw Jake back several meters to crash to the earth, his ears ringing, the violin note reaching a crescendo.

  Blindly, he staggered to his feet, stumbling toward where he thought he would find Roach, though he couldn’t see a thing.

  He located Roach’s mech by feel, and he realized through touch alone that both his adversary’s arms now ended at the elbows.

  He seized Roach’s neck once more with his left hand and turned his right into a short sword, which he used to stab Roach over and over until the man’s mech was a perforated wreck and he’d stopped moving altogether.

  Only then did Jake allow his vanquished enemy to fall to the ground.

  Chapter 53

  Surge Forward

  Lisa ran from shallow cliff to hollow to boulder, taking as little time as she could behind each hide before checking to ensure the way forward was clear and darting out again.

  There’s no way Rug and the others can hold out against three Amblers for long.

  She knew that, and her friend would know it, too. But Rug and the others with her fought on, with ferocity and bravery. It would amount to a terrible betrayal for Lisa to squander the short window they’d granted her.

  “How long till you engage?” she subvocalized to Planter, the Quatro she’d put in charge of the combat shuttles.

  “Minutes, Lisa Sato. We will arrive in time to strike together.”

  That was the best she could have hoped for. With Rug engaging the Amblers who’d been firing on her force from the cliffs, Lisa would get a tiny window to strike the robot army within the canyon, and during that time they would be on more or less equal footing.

  Other than the machines they have positioned partway up the cliffs, of course.

  Those would likely pose a problem, but hopefully the combat shuttles could manage to pick most of them off.

  Once the Amblers finish off Rug’s force, though…

  It tore her apart to consider the fact of Rug’s impending death, but she had to consider it, because it would leave the Amblers free once again to fire down from the cliffs with their vast arsenals. Quite likely, they’d be able to take down the shuttles as well.

  Lisa and her Quatro force, along with the four surviving humans under her command...together, they advanced forward under cover for as long as they could. Without the Amblers firing down on them, that ended up being a fair distance, since the Gatherers in the canyon didn’t have long-range weapons.

  Lisa had also spotted humanoid robots, a little shorter than an average person, though those didn’t seem to have long-range weapons either.

  There were two more Amblers inside the canyon, however, and they were picking off Quatro careless enough to expose themselves at an alarming rate.

  At last, Lisa’s force reached the canyon, and the swarm of Gatherers and bipedal robots chose that moment to surge forward as one, rapidly closing the distance.

  The unarmed Quatro surged forward to meet them, and from behind, the armed soldiers fired on the robot host.

  There are too many of them.

  Even with the combat shuttles about to arrive, Lisa simply couldn’t see how they’d pull a victory out of this situation.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t intend to try.

  From atop a shallow rise, she took aim at one of the Gatherers about to close with a Quatro, then fired.

  An Ambler spotted her, sending a rocket her way, and she dove off the hill, sprinting toward a nearby hollow for cover.

  Chapter 54

  Torn Asunder

  A line of armor-piercing rounds hit Rug’s rear-right leg, shearing through flesh and bone.

  The pain made her roar in agony, but she continued moving toward the boulder she’d chosen for cover, the leg dragging uselessly across the ground.

  More bullets tore up the boulder as she dove behind it. But she couldn’t let herself rest.

  Instead, she wended around the massive rock to fire at her attacker from the other side, blasts of energy forcing the Ambler back momentarily.

  It recovered, answering Rug’s efforts with a rocket. That forced her to scamper back, abandoning the rock but keeping it between her and the Ambler, her leg sending shockwaves of pain through her all the while.

  The other Quatro on the cliff were in states similar to hers—the ones that survived, anyway. Most of the unarmed Quatro had been killed during the first minutes of battle, and now it was everything the armed Quatro could do to keep the three giant mechs occupied while remaining alive themselves.

  “Rug, how’s it going up there?”

  “Not very well, Lisa Sato,” she answered, glad that subvocalization allowed her to keep the agony out of her voice.

  “Actually, you’re doing amazingly, Rug. I never expected to have this much time to fight the battle on the lower ground.”

  “Thank you…but I do not think you will have much longer. I apologize. It has…been good to be your friend.”

  Part of her expected Lisa to tell her not to talk like that, but she only said, “I’ve cherished our time together too, Rug.”

  She also expects me to die this day.

  Rug decided that if she was going to die, then it would be a good death.

  She limped from the boulder she’d taken cover behind, pelting the nearest Ambler with bolt after bolt of energy.

  It turned toward her, taking its attention from the pair of Alex Quatro it had been pinning down.

  Those Quatro now emerged from cover too, joining their fire with Rug’s.

  Perhaps if we can take down just one Ambler, it might make a difference…

  But the Ambler who’d nearly shot off her leg turned its rockets on her once more, and Rug knew it was over.

  Suddenly, a streak of dark metal charged past her from the direction of the mountain pass they’d taken to get here. It leapt into the air, connecting with the Ambler, and the enemy’s rockets were diverted to the mountainside beyond Rug.

  “My soul?” she said, disbelieving.

  The Quatro mech pushed off the Ambler, sending it tottering toward the cliff, and her mate hammered it with high-velocity rounds until it toppled, careening over the side to crash down to the battle below.

  He turned on the next Ambler, which was already peppering him with its heavy guns.

  Rug rushed forward to join her mate, sending bolt after bolt to slam into the Ambler’s dome.

  Her mate turned, and her eyes locked onto his robotic, glowing ones.

  “Goodbye, my love,” he said.

  “My soul—no!”

  With that, her mate rocketed up into the Ambler, knocking it off the cliff and sending them both flying from it.

  Her heart torn asunder, Rug nevertheless banded together with the Quatro that remained on the cliff, and together they managed to neutralize the third Ambler. Their concentrated energy fire sent it to its knees, and then to the ground, where it slumped sideways and did not rise.

  She and the other Quatro sprinted to the cliff side, then, to pelt the enemy robots in the canyon below.

  “Rug!” Lisa said, excitement filling her voice. “The battle’s turning in our favor. How did you manage to take out those Amblers?”

  “We received some unexpected assistance,” Rug said, and Lisa did not request clarification.

  Perhaps she had been engaged by an enemy robot.

  Or, perhaps, she’d heard the unbearable sadness in Rug’s voice, and knew it was best not to question further.

  Epilogue

  The Demands of War

  “That’s no dust storm,” Billy Overton said, his thumbs tucked behind his belt.

  Jake glanced over at the old man, who squinted out over the Barrens, studying the oncoming formation.
“You don’t think so?”

  “Nah. Dust storms come in like giant, puffy clouds rising up from the ground. This dust-up’s narrower—high, and sharp. Reminds me of the day those Quatro mechs came, and another mech like the one you drive fought them. You might want to get in yours, boy.”

  Jake nodded. “I have time.”

  “S’pose you do, at that.” Overton wrinkled his nose as he peered out over the land. “They’re not coming as fast as they did on the day Sable Hawthorne died. I tried to warn the others that day, but you think they’d listen to me? Then, later on, those mechs all came back, the four-legged ones and the two-legged one, but this time they were working together to kill everyone. Billy had his shelter, though. Billy had his shelter.” The last words came out as a mutter.

  “Do you miss your neighbors, Billy?”

  Abruptly, Overton’s head sank, his chin settling against his chest. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice hitched.

  Something about the endearing gesture got to Jake—resonated with him. He laid a hand on Overton’s shoulder. “I’ll go get my mech.”

  “All right, then.”

  According to Beth, Oneiri had found Overton in River Rock soon after the second attack on it. They’d tried to persuade him to accept an evac out of the town, but he’d kicked up such a massive stink that the soldier dealing with him simply gave up and told Overton he could do whatever he wanted.

  Darkstream had taken Ash to Valhalla Station to recover after the battle at Vanguard, along with Roach’s remains, and the quad’s.

  Jake didn’t think that seemed like a good idea—to hold on to what was left of the alien mechs for study. But it hadn’t been his call to make.

  Ignoring Bronson’s order for Oneiri to return to Valhalla for a debriefing, though—that had been Jake’s call.

  It was all of our call.

  They’d come here instead, to River Rock, to talk about the data dump Beth had given him, which Ash had received from the leader of Red Company. And also to discuss whether they wanted to work for Darkstream at all anymore.

  The alien mech sat outside Overton’s shelter, slightly slumped, as though lacking the life force that animated it when Jake was inside it.

  That thing’s like a sword with no hilt. It was a sharp sword, though, and it got the job done if you could resist its siren call.

  Which he was determined to continue doing. Sue Anne’s voice was too loud in his ears to do otherwise.

  When Jake returned to Overton’s side, there was a new gleam in the old man’s eyes as he beheld the mech.

  He likes tech—there’s no denying that. Jake couldn’t blame him. He did, too. Always had.

  Soon, what Overton had called a dust-up resolved into a force of hundreds of Quatro.

  As soon as it did, Jake opened a team-wide channel. “Inside your mechs, everyone. We’ve got company. Lots of it.”

  The three MIMAS mechs currently in operation joined him on the border of the Barrens minutes later. They managed to persuade Billy Overton to watch whatever happened from his shelter, though he wanted badly to stay and see it with his own eyes.

  At last, the Quatro force neared, and two humans walked at their fore—a young Korean woman as well as a woman of Western descent, who looked like she must have been in her sixties at least, though she clearly didn’t let her age slow her down very much.

  “That’s Lisa Sato and Tessa Notaras,” Henrietta said. “Traitors. They killed Darkstream soldiers on Alex.”

  Henrietta was the least convinced about quitting Darkstream, and she’d taken a lot of persuading to come here at all—only her loyalty to Oneiri Team had swayed her to ignore Bronson’s order long enough to join the discussions.

  At hearing the names Henrietta had spoken, Jake breathed a sigh of relief. “There doesn’t need to be any fighting.”

  Henrietta shot him a look. “Huh?”

  “You three wait here.” Jake strode out over the Barrens to meet the oncoming force.

  “Whoa, there, big boy,” Tessa Notaras said, leveling an assault rifle at him.

  Cute. Jake held up his hands. “I surrender.”

  When he spoke, Lisa Sato stared at him, hard. “I recognize that voice. Could it truly be…?”

  Jake opened his mech, a panel in front stiffening then lowering to make a ramp for him to descend.

  When he reached the bottom, he gave a little wave. “Hi, Lisa.”

  She ran to him, her boots stirring up little puffs of dust as she did.

  When she collided with him, she nearly knocked him back onto the metal ramp, and her embrace tightened hard over his frame.

  He hugged her back. “Whoa. You’ve gotten stronger since the last time we were caught wrestling in Percival Brown’s corn field.”

  She drew back from him, still holding both his arms. “Hi, Stink.”

  Wincing, Jake said, “I was hoping you’d forgotten that nickname.”

  He got inside his mech to take it back to River Rock, and they walked side-by-side, instantly launching into a dozen different memories about growing up in the Belt.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Jake said, peering down at her. “Last I heard, you’d taken a job on Alex. I was so jealous when I learned about that.”

  That made Lisa’s smile shrink and grow tight. “It didn’t end well.”

  “I heard that, too. I’m sorry.”

  He happened to glance behind him, and then he stopped walking altogether. A quad had caught his eye, marching at the periphery of the host.

  “That’s Rug,” Lisa said. “She’s a friend.”

  “I see,” Jake said slowly. “Sorry…I’m used to fighting those things.”

  Lisa nodded. “Her mate piloted that mech, just a few days ago. He died, but the mech repaired itself.”

  They reached River Rock, and the three remaining MIMAS pilots were waiting for them on the village green. None of them had gotten out of their mechs.

  To show them everything was all right, Jake opened his own mech and got out.

  “Hey, guys, it’s okay,” he said. “We’re among friends.”

  “Sorry,” Henrietta said, leveling a finger at the multitude of Quatro, most of which remained just outside the village for now. “I don’t remember agreeing to include a bunch of Quatro in our talks.”

  “We haven’t even settled on what we’re doing yet, Razor. Depending on what we decide, these Quatro could prove to be valuable allies.”

  “I don’t side with Quatro, Jake,” she countered. “And the fact that you’re considering it frankly disgusts me.”

  Jake sighed. “I’m inclined to believe Darkstream really did provoke them. Hell, Bronson ordered me to abandon my own family to their deaths. And they would have died, along with almost everyone I’ve ever known, if I hadn’t disobeyed to return to Hub.”

  Lisa shot him a sharp glance at that, her eyes wide and full of questions.

  “Sorry, Jake,” Henrietta said. “This isn’t what I signed up for. If we’re welcoming these Quatro instead of fighting them, then I’m out for good.”

  “I am, too,” Beth said.

  Jake shook his head slowly. “For real, Paste? You too?”

  “Yeah.”

  Both MIMAS mechs turned and walked out of River Rock. A weight settled over Jake’s heart as he watched them go.

  He turned toward Marco. “How about you, Spirit?”

  Marco’s mech shifted its weight. “I’m with you, Clutch. Always.”

  “Good. Thank you.” And it was good, but it also seemed like Oneiri Team was no more. The team had been shattered, and now they would be nothing more than separate agents fighting on opposing sides.

  “Are we just gonna let them walk away?” Tessa Notaras said, gesturing at the departing mechs. “If we don’t neutralize them now, we’ll only face them on the battlefield.”

  “Yes, we are, Ms. Notaras,” Jake said. “And yes, we probably will face them. But they were my teammates, and I won’t dishonor them by gunning them
down from behind.”

  “Then you’re no soldier,” Notaras said. “You’re a fool.”

  “Maybe I am,” Jake said, nodding. “Maybe this will come back to haunt me. But the members of Oneiri Team…we risked our lives for each other, countless times over. There are some codes that not even the demands of war should be permitted to break.”

  INFLICTION

  Mech Wars: Book 4

  © Scott Bartlett 2017

  Cover art by Tom Edwards (tomedwardsdesign.com)

  This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

  This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, businesses, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Live by the Ledger

  “The Progenitors have not kept up their end of the deal,” said Suzanne Defleur, sweeping silver hair from her eyes. Defleur was chairperson of the Darkstream board, and she had a regal air even in normal life, but in the medieval fantasy that lucid had concocted for the Darkstream board meeting, her deep purple robes only heightened the effect.

  Before answering, Bob Bronson squinted closer at those robes. Is that…Quatro fur? It certainly resembled garments he’d seen made from Quatro coats, and he would have put money on Defleur owning such a garment in real life.

  “On the contrary,” Bronson said at last, shifting his weight in the chair the sim had provided him. The six board members all sat in thrones, evenly spaced along the back wall of the simulated throne room, and while the chair they’d given him was sumptuous, it was far from throne-like. “The Progenitors have observed our deal to the letter. They promised growth and security for Darkstream’s economic prospects, to be achieved via a measured destabilization. That’s exactly what we’ve seen.”

  “Nothing about the Battle of Vanguard was measured,” Zane Harris spat. “It was almost a disaster, and if it wasn’t for Price showing up in an alien mech, it would have been.”