Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  “Thank you,” Ash rasped—the loudest she could manage.

  After a perfunctory checkup, Korhonen moved toward the only other patient in the room, a young boy who looked no more than nine.

  “Wait,” Ash said.

  Korhonen turned, raising her eyebrows.

  “Gabriel Roach,” Ash said. “Is he…what became of him?”

  “He is dead.” The doctor’s lips formed a thin line for an instant, and then she continued toward the boy.

  Ash was left alone with her thoughts, which kept returning to the question of whether she could have avoided Roach’s betrayal. The man had been abusive toward her before, and yet she’d kept following him, because she hadn’t trusted her own ability to lead Oneiri. She’d convinced herself that they needed him. And then he’d nearly killed her.

  But there was more to the picture than just her reliance on Roach. They’d both been driven by avenging Jess Sweeney’s death. Ash had thought that united them. She’d felt it. Yet here she was, recovering from Roach’s murderous attack.

  What does vengeance even mean anymore? Punishing the Quatro for killing her sister had been her primary motivator for persevering through MIMAS training, when hundreds of others had washed out.

  I endured Roach’s abuse then, too. I told myself it was for the best.

  With the data dump DuGalle had provided her, showing how Darkstream used Red Company to provoke the Quatro into war…

  Who had truly killed her sister? The Quatro, or her employer?

  Suddenly, she remembered what Captain Bronson had said during the Battle of Vanguard, about his willingness to nuke the entire area if the engagement went south, in order to neutralize the hostile robots.

  If he was willing to bomb his subordinates from orbit just because they were defeated, robbing them of any chance to retreat…

  If Bronson was willing to do that, then he would definitely be willing to bombard any region containing those who’d turned against him. That made her wonder where the rest of Oneiri had ended up. Ash had shared the revelations from DuGalle’s data dump with them just before the battle.

  She found that her implant still functioned, and so she used it to contact Beth Arkanian.

  “Ash,” her friend said breathlessly, her sapphire eyes wide. “You’re awake!”

  “I am. I don’t know how, but…I’m awake. I’m alive.”

  “I, um, I may have had something to do with that. I carried you to a hilltop and I fended off hostiles to keep you safe. Marco helped too, and Jake.”

  “Jake? He’s back?”

  Beth cast her eyes downward, then. “He is, but…he’s gone rogue, Ash. He pilots an alien mech now, and he went rogue, just like Roach did.”

  Her heart plummeting, Ash whispered, “Oh, no. He attacked you?’

  “Well, no. Not yet. But he and Marco have joined up with Quatro, and they’re ignoring Captain Bronson’s orders to return to Valhalla. It’s pretty clear what they’re planning.”

  “Wait, Marco’s with Jake? Then Jake can’t be unstable like Roach was. Marco wouldn’t have joined him, if he was.”

  Beth’s slim shoulders rose and fell. “All I know is he’s joined our enemies. That’s all I really need to know. I know he’s your friend, but…”

  “He’s a traitor. Yes. I get it, Beth.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “As all right as I can be, I guess. I’m gonna go, okay?”

  Beth’s eyes went wide again, and then she checked herself. “Okay. Well, take care, Ash.”

  “You too.”

  Terminating the transmission, Ash struggled to steady her breathing. Beth Arkanian was dear to her, which made it even harder to process that she was so willing to turn against Jake, to consider him an enemy. Other than her desire to avenge Jess, Jake had been the only reason Ash had gotten through mech training, and she knew that she had done the same for him. He’d told her as much.

  Didn’t Beth understand that Jake was dear to Ash, too?

  She reached out to Jake via the system net, taking care to double-check the encryption first so that not even Darkstream’s spies could decipher the content of their conversation.

  At least, I hope they can’t. Ash knew they’d installed back doors into the implants—both the devices they sold to the public and those they gave their military personnel. She knew about many of those back doors, but it was possible there were some she didn’t.

  “Ash,” Jake said, and the relief and warmth he put into her name told her he didn’t consider her to be an enemy.

  That’s a good start. “Jake. I hear you’ve gone rogue.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “I hadn’t quite thought of it like that, but ‘gone rogue’ does sound a lot cooler than ‘treason.’”

  “But you don’t really see yourself as a traitor, do you?”

  “Depends on your perspective. I’m betraying Darkstream, sure. But only after they betrayed the people they swore they’re dedicated to protecting.”

  Ash nodded. “Do you think Bronson considers you a threat?”

  “Of course. In fact, I’m a little insulted that you’d insinuate there’s any other possibility. I do have a horde of Quatro with me, you know. Not to mention a shiny new alien mech.”

  “Watch yourself with that thing. I assume you know what it did to Roach?”

  “I do. And trust me, I’m well aware of its danger.”

  “Good.” Ash paused. “The reason I asked whether you think Bronson considers you a threat…Jake, he doesn’t need much prompting to wipe you out with nukes from orbit.”

  “Seriously? Bronson’s a dick, sure, but irradiating an entire region is kind of next level, isn’t—”

  “He’ll do it. He was even going to do it if we lost the battle at Vanguard.”

  “Wow. I mean…wow.”

  “Yeah. You need to get Marco to disable the function that broadcasts your implant’s coordinates. That, or cut the things out of your heads.”

  “I’ll go with option A. But still, satellite images will still likely show our location after I join back up with our army. With a force that big, there’s going to be signs, even from orbit.”

  “Yeah, but why help Bronson paint a target on your heads? Besides, there are other reasons to disable Darkstream’s window into your skulls. Ever heard of OPSEC?”

  Smiling wryly, Jake nodded. “You’re right. I’ll get Marco started on it, though he’s not going to be happy. I already have him cracking the access control on the MIMAS sims.”

  “You—” Ash shook her head as much as she could manage against the pillow. I’m not going to comment on that news. “Just stay safe, Jake.”

  “You too. And get better. Thanks for the tipoff on how crazy Bronson really is.”

  “You’re pretty crazy yourself, you know,” Ash said.

  “In all the right ways, though, right?”

  “Jury’s out on that one.” Ash terminated the transmission, then, a smile curling the corners of her lips.

  Chapter 6

  Robot Horde

  Rug surged through the woods, and with her passage, mighty trees splintered that once would have given her pause.

  Once, she would have cared more about the destruction she wrought. But she’d undergone a change.

  A corollary of that change was that she ignored the voice telling her she should wait for the rest of her force before engaging. That, as their leader, she needed to see to her own safety before she saw to theirs—and even before the safety of the drift they were attempting to save today.

  Your mate would not have condoned this recklessness.

  “Then my mate would have been a hypocrite,” Rug muttered as she charged forward, her four metal paws rending the earth. It was her mate’s recklessness that had saved Rug, and in the aftermath of his death, during her darkest moments, she felt content to continue that tradition until she finally joined him in death.

  The trees thinned and fell away entirely as she emerged from the fo
rest and onto the plain, where her dwindling brethren fought an enemy comprised of assorted metal foes: two Amblers, dozens of Gatherers, and a swarm of Ravagers so thick and numerous that even her suit was having difficulty tallying them.

  The robotic hostiles had the beleaguered Quatro drift surrounded—at least, they had until now. Though Rug’s force hadn’t caught up yet, she planned to modify the situation on her own if she could.

  Veering to the left, reining in the awesome momentum her quad was capable of, she barreled toward a section of enemy forces that was as far from the pair of Amblers as it was possible to get.

  The enemy had barely registered her presence, but that quickly changed when she barreled into them, sending Ravagers and Gatherers hurtling through the air.

  Dogged and savage as ever, the Ravagers quickly regrouped, turning their efforts on her, trying to get at her mech to rip it apart. That was a real danger, she knew from experience, and if she allowed them unchallenged access for too long, she was done.

  But the dynamic of this battle had changed, and the rate of Quatro deaths had slowed. Almost a third of the enemy had turned to react to her attack, and the robot onslaught began to falter.

  That analysis flitted through Rug’s brain as her flanks morphed, suddenly bristling with twin batteries of energy cannons, which she used to execute simultaneous broadsides, blowing away the front ranks of metal hostiles.

  A couple of Ravagers still managed to make it through, and Rug reared on her hind paws, batting one of them out of the air with a forepaw and causing the robot to disintegrate. The maneuver angled the guns projecting from her left side upward, which more than accounted for the second Ravager.

  By then, the rest of her Quatro force was emerging from the forest. Though none of them wielded the power Rug’s mech afforded her, their sheer numbers were instantly apparent, and they just kept coming.

  Rug had learned that the Meddlers’ robots did have a self-preservation mechanism, and they seemed to have performed a quick calculus of their odds of winning this engagement, given the new arrivals.

  Those odds were not favorable to them, and the tide of metal attackers shifted instantly to flee across the plain.

  Roaring and barking, the Quatro gave chase, including those who had been surrounded. Although witnessing such bravery and valor didn’t surprise Rug, it still sent a thrill through her as she chased after the retreating robots, savaging their backsides with gun and tooth and claw.

  Yes, the whispers began, and Rug struggled to silence them. As so often happened of late, she failed.

  Kill them. Kill them all. Start with your foes and finish with your friends. Oblivion is the kindest end.

  Not the most pleasant sentiment, to be sure. Despite her inability to control the soft voices that whispered constantly to her from within the suit, she did not share their indiscriminate desire to exterminate. She wanted to exterminate, surely, but only those who’d taken her mate from her.

  As Rug harried the metal devils across the plain, Lisa Sato contacted her, a function that the battle suit enabled. That worried Rug—how useful the suit had turned out to be, and also how seamlessly it integrated with human technology. She bore no illusions about the weapon’s origin, and she knew that whatever purpose for which it had been designed, it had not been one born of goodwill.

  “Rug,” Lisa Sato began. “Jake just heard from Ash Sweeney, who claims that Bronson won’t hesitate to bomb us from orbit if we became too big a thorn in his side.”

  Rug slowed her chase, and her quarry immediately began to lengthen the gap between them. “Is he capable of such a thing?”

  “Sweeney thinks so. Either way, it’s enough to warrant a meeting of resistance leadership. How have your efforts been going?”

  “Well,” Rug said. “We have joined five drifts to our cause, two which we joined in the midst of battle.” The last drift had been beset by Darkstream soldiers, but the outcome of that battle had been the same as today’s.

  “Excellent work. The drift here is ready to join us, too. All the more reason to meet and decide what our next steps will be. This is urgent, Rug. I need you to name a second-in-command and then leave immediately to join us.”

  “It will be done, Lisa Sato.”

  “Good. Thank you, Rug. I’ll send you our coordinates now, along with instructions on how to find this drift’s lair. I…I don’t think your quad will fit.”

  “I will find a safe place for it.”

  Ten minutes later, Rug was bounding across the countryside. Unlike when the battle fervor had gripped her, she lamented the effect she knew her passage must be having on the ecosystems of Eresos. This time, she took as much care as possible to spare the planet’s flora without sacrificing speed.

  It was all she could do. Haste had become a necessity for all who remained on Eresos and wished to survive. If Darkstream remained unchallenged, and the robot horde continued to run amok, it was likely that Eresos would soon be left without any stable ecosystems to speak of.

  Chapter 7

  Far from Stable

  “Gonzalez,” Jake said, opting for a greater level of formality than he normally would have. “Report on your progress with masking our implants’ locations from Darkstream.”

  Marco pushed himself off of the rock and stepped forward. The resistance leadership was meeting in the main chamber of the smallish cave system. In Jake’s view, the drift who’d taken over this place as their temporary sanctuary was overrepresented at the meeting, but he supposed that was their due, given they controlled it. He would have taken advantage of it in their place, too.

  Of course, since only one of them had a translator, it did slow things down somewhat. The Quatro with the device, who’d chosen the name Plank for himself, paused frequently to translate for the others, which often sparked what seemed to be an intense debate before Plank was allowed to give an answer to whatever had been said.

  “I’ve just about accomplished it,” Marco said. “Though my work on the implants has slowed progress on cracking the MIMAS sims.”

  It’s called prioritizing, Marco. Spirit was brilliant, but sometimes Jake found his inability to grasp basic logistics a bit grating.

  “That’s fine,” Jake said. “The bottom line—”

  “Is masking your implants truly necessary?” Plank asked. “I know Darkstream to be monstrous, but would they be willing to jeopardize the other humans living on this planet?”

  “They’ve jeopardized them plenty already, if the Red Company leaks are to be believed,” Jake answered. “And I don’t see why we wouldn’t believe them. Either way, I don’t think we should sit on our hands—or, uh, paws—to find out. We need to act.”

  Rug rose to her feet, looking small to Jake. She was big for a Quatro, which was saying something, but he’d mostly only seen her inside her quad.

  “We should not act merely for the sake of acting,” Rug said. “We must decide on a clear thrust for our actions. What is our goal?”

  “Good question,” Jake said, nodding. “We’re obviously at war, but with whom? Should we focus our efforts on taking down Darkstream or on trying to save the populace from the robots that have turned against them?”

  “Darkstream,” Lisa said emphatically.

  Rug spoke again. “The fact that the Amblers and Gatherers have turned on both humans and Quatro, paired with the arrival of so many Ravagers—there is only one explanation. The Meddlers have returned.”

  Lisa’s expression was carefully controlled, Jake saw. She doesn’t want to insult her friend, but she disagrees. Pretty strongly, I think.

  “Rug…” Lisa said slowly. “You said the Meddlers would return only when the reservoirs are filled with resources from the Gatherers. We’re far from that point, and the Gatherers have stopped harvesting altogether. You said the Meddlers wouldn’t come for another year at least.”

  The Quatro swung its massive head toward Lisa. “Clearly, their schedule has accelerated.”

  “Rug,” Marco
said, and Jake had to repress an urge to glare him into silence.

  The Quatro turned ponderously toward Spirit.

  “You say the Meddlers built the robots. But have you ever actually seen a Meddler?”

  “No,” Rug said after a brief pause. “However, when we were stranded on Alex, my drift did identify a particular model of robot that we became certain was under direct remote control by the Meddlers. Their avatars, in a sense. We based the conclusion on these robots’ behavior, as well as the way their fellows strove to protect them at all costs.”

  “What did those robots look like?” Marco asked.

  “Much taller than Gatherers and Ravagers. Taller than humans, and even some Quatro. They were made of silver and gold plates, all woven together, and they wielded immense strength—greater than that of the Ravagers. They had no native weaponry installed, though often they carried guns, in the manner you humans do.”

  Marco was nodding, considering Rug’s words in silence, which lately Jake preferred to the alternative.

  Jake cleared his throat and said, “I have to agree with Lisa that Darkstream should be our primary target. I’m sure we’ll end up fighting robots either way, but given the threat of orbital nukes, Darkstream holds everyone and everything in their sway. They also control the main avenue of ingress and egress from Eresos—the space elevator. Rug, I know you advocate for leaving this star system altogether. I’m not saying I’m on board with that, but it is true that retaking the elevator is the first step toward it. Right now, leaving the system isn’t an option for us, but if we take the elevator, the possibility will at least open up.”

  That didn’t end the meeting, which would have been too simple. Instead, they talked for hours more. But nothing new was decided after Jake’s words, which, one by one, everyone came around to endorsing.

  They would take the fight to Darkstream. As the decision was made, a knot of tension unraveled in Jake’s chest, one he hadn’t realized was there. A glance at Lisa told him that she felt similarly. They shared a warm smile.