Battle Harem 2

by Isaac Hooke

  He swiveled to the side, giving himself the range he needed to fire his energy weapon, and let loose at the first injured Squidphant. He was about to bring the weapon to bear on the other, when Xin dove past in a blur of superheated metal. Her hull was white hot, and when she slammed into the other Squidphant, it squealed in pain. Steam erupted from the burned surface of its body.

  Tara had positioned herself in front of him, and she was cutting through the waves of attackers with her sword, protecting him. Jason guarded her flanks, and shot down any creatures that escaped her sword.

  Lori soon joined them, as well as Sophie’s spider mech, and they fought with their backs to one another.

  Xin and Aria were fighting nearby, back to back like the others. They didn’t fire their weapons very often, as they were obviously waiting for them to recharge. But Aria used her ballistic shield to bash away any of the tentacled creatures that got too close, while Xin merely had to stand in place, her superheated hull enough of a deterrent to the creatures, which did their best not to touch her. Pain was the only reward when they did.

  “You know, those roasted tentacles near you, Xin, actually smell pretty good!” Aria said.

  “If we were human, we would be having a sweet squid buffet tonight,” Lori said.

  “I don’t think they’re biologically compatible with humans,” Sophie said.

  “Actually, as far as I can tell, they are,” Aria said. “From the limited scans I’ve made, their DNA seems based on Earth stock. Which would make sense, considering that they can survive in our atmosphere.”

  “The aliens obviously collected a lot of samples during their previous invasion,” Xin said.

  The missile alarm sounded. “Incoming!”

  Jason fired the Battle Cloak again, and dove aside. He was still operating under Bullet Time, but he increased his time sense even further. He could see the blurs of the missiles coming in on his rear view camera.

  He, Lori, Tara, and Sophie separated as countermeasures accelerated outward from each of their bodies. Those countermeasures swerved toward the incoming missiles, and detonated them.

  The force of the explosions sent Jason flying. Bioweapon body parts and shrapnel tore past—some of that shrapnel embedded in his back, but all of his systems were still online.

  “Those weren’t ordinary missiles,” Tara said.

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked.

  “Look at the impact site,” Tara said.

  He did. Where the missiles had hit the countermeasures, amorphous black blobs floated in the air. They expanded outward, like a tar, seeking the different mechs.

  “Uh, probably best not to let that touch you,” Aria said.

  “No,” Jason agreed.

  He scooped up the body of a nearby dead Squidphant, and swatted it toward the black blob. The dark mass instantly flowed onto the dead bioweapon, running along the surface area of its skin, appearing to harden as it did so. Jason released the creature before that darkness could flow onto his arms, and when the Squidphant hit the ground, it shattered into a hundred pieces.

  “Definitely don’t want to let those blobs touch you,” Jason said.

  Sophie, Tara and Lori likewise used dead bodies to scoop the remaining floating blobs from the air in a similar manner. Jason meanwhile fended off the latest group of bioweapons rushing them.

  “I’m getting low on power,” Jason said. “I’m going to have to hold off firing until my battery recharges a bit.”

  Aria had installed enhancers into their suits to improve the rate at which each mech could recharge in the sunlight, and it was working well, except for the fact that much of his exterior was covered in blood.

  He quickly dove onto a dead Squidphant and wiped his front and back while Lori, Tara and Sophie fended off the next wave.

  “Itchy back?” Lori commented.

  “Something like that,” Jason said.

  He scrambled to his feet, and picked up the dead Squidphant, intending to use it as a club. It had some sharp pieces of shrapnel embedded near its head, so that made it a good little bladed weapon.

  Bioweapons came in, and Jason put his new club to good use. Soon he had a small wall of dead around him.

  But then something appeared in front of him, and smashed a fist into his chest. He went flying backward, releasing his makeshift club.

  When he landed on his back, he looked up to regard his attacker. It was a mech, humanoid in shape, reddish in color, about the same size as his own, though of a design he’d never seen before. Whereas the mechs of the War Forgers were all blocky limbs and other parts interrupted by round servomotors, this mech had an entirely smooth, almost organic surface, with a silvery glow in its chest area.

  As Jason watched, two swords deployed, sliding downward from the forearms to extend well over the metallic hands. They glowed with electricity, like Tara’s, except that electricity was hued red.

  Jason had enough power to use his energy cannon, so he fired again. Straight at that silvery glow in its chest area.

  The large mech momentarily phased out of existence, leaving only a yellow outline, and the energy bolt passed right through it. Then the mech reappeared, and took a menacing step toward him.

  “We got some kind of Phasers!” Jason said.

  A bioweapon came at him from the side at the same time, and wrapped its tentacles around his forearm. Another did the same to his opposite arm. They held his arms apart, and kept him motionless.

  The mech continued to close. It brandished its swords menacingly. It pulled them both backward, in a motion that would end in a dual stab.

  Directly into his AI core.

  He had enough energy to fire his energy weapon again, so he did so, directly into the Squidphant that held him on the right. The grip loosened, and he shifted to the left; the Squidphant on that side was still pulling him in that direction, so Jason’s motion only abetted that pull, and he slid cleanly out of the way of those swords, stabbing the dead body that still held him. Those two swords embedded deep in the main body of the corpse.

  But the mech simply phased out of existence to draw those swords free.

  Jason brought the energy weapon down, intending to fire at the Squidphant that still held him, but his battery power hadn’t yet risen enough. It was enough to fire his laser, though. While weak, at this range, it would definitely sting.

  He swiveled the laser into his right arm, and fired at the creature.

  The Squidphant squealed, and finally released him.

  Jason glanced at the other mechs, and saw that they all were dealing with similar Phasers, while at the same time battling the bioweapons.

  “Should we transform?” Tara said.

  “No,” Jason said. “It won’t help. Especially given our low power levels.”

  The nearby alien mech struck downward with both swords, almost hitting Jason’s arm: he leaped backward just in time. Jason landed in the arms of another bioweapon—or rather, the tentacles. He’d caught the beast off guard, and those tentacles hadn’t yet closed over him; he swiveled to the side in Bullet Time, grabbed the tentacles, and lifted the Squidphant into the air, hurling it at the incoming attacker.

  The alien mech phased out of existence once again.

  Jason amped up his time sense to the max.

  “Z, have you been keeping track of how many times the mech has been phasing in and out?” Jason said.

  “I have,” Z said in a voice that seemed slightly sultry. Her dark-haired avatar appeared in the lower right of his display.

  “Is there any pattern to its phasing?” Jason said. “Maybe a time limit?”

  “Actually, yes,” Z said. “All of the phase outs thus far have occurred over a time period of one point two-five seconds.”

  “Bingo,” Jason said. “I want you to fire my energy weapon at the silver core in its chest. Time the energy bolt to arrive a microsecond after the mech phases back in.”

  “Ready,” Z said.

  Jason reduced his t
ime sense somewhat so that he could move once again, and he lifted his energy weapon, pointing it at the alien mech. Then he accelerated his time sense further, and waited.

  The mech began to phase back into existence.

  Z fired.

  The bolt impacted the mech just as it completed its phase in. The bolt slammed into the silvery core, disintegrating half of it, and the light promptly went out. The mech jerked, and fell.

  “When these mechs phase out, they come back in every one point two five seconds,” Jason said. “Use that… time your follow-up strikes to take them down.”

  “We’ve figured it out,” Tara said.

  Jason dodged two more Squidphants, and raced to the dead mech. He grabbed one of the forearms by the base, and ripped it off after some effort. Then he turned toward the bioweapons. The sword no longer rippled with red electricity, but that didn’t matter, he had no doubt it could still cut fairly well.

  Using the forearm as a hilt, he slashed at the incoming bioweapons, cut off the tentacles of the first, and dodged to the side and sliced through the belly of the second. Entrails burst forth.

  “I can see why you like your sword, Tara,” Jason said.

  “It can be handy at times,” Tara agreed.

  Another alien mech phased through the pile of bodies in front of Jason; he didn’t bother to attempt a strike, since he didn’t know when the mech had phased out. So he waited.

  The mech phased in and swung its swords down. Jason parried as best as he was able with his existing sword, but he was entirely on the defensive, and was forced backward. Their blades would have seemed to move in a blur to the outside world, but in Bullet Time the motion was readily trackable.

  He stepped back several paces, trying to get away from that onslaught, but the mech closed the distance constantly. Jason almost tripped on a fallen corpse, and the mech used the opportunity to stab.

  But then Aria was there, her ballistic shield intercepting the deadly weapon.

  Sophie came landing down from above at the same time, her micro machines forming a giant ax. The mech phased out as the blade struck, but Sophie kept cycling her micro machines through the out-of-phase mech, so that they formed a constant, whirling chainsaw. When the alien mech reappeared, it was promptly sliced in half.

  Sophie spun around, and directed that spinning blade against two bioweapons, sending up fountains of blood upon impact.

  And then, just like that, it was over.

  No more attackers came.

  Jason glanced across the estate: it was littered with bioweapon corpses, and the wreckage of ten alien mechs. The rift had sealed. The mechs were battered, dented, and covered in the blood of bioweapons, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  Jason tossed aside the arm and the sword it held.

  “Well that was fun,” Tara said.

  “Fending off alien bioweapons and their mechs always is,” Xin said.

  “You might want to take a look at this,” Sophie said.

  She was standing above one of the destroyed alien mechs. Jason went to her, and looked down. Inside what appeared to be a cockpit, was some sort of a tentacled creature.

  5

  The creature wasn’t moving, and as Jason watched, it dissolved before his very eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Jason said.

  “Our atmosphere isn’t compatible with it,” Xin said. “Our air is literally caustic to its tissues.”

  In only a few more seconds, there was nothing left of the creature at all, save for a small blackened mass of tissue, with no bones that he could discern.

  “Well, guess we won’t be doing any studying of these things,” Jason quipped.

  “I scanned the gaseous contents that were released when we opened it up,” Aria said. “I can set up a similar environment, of the same pressure. Big enough to hold one of the alien mechs. We’ll choose one with the cockpit intact.” She glanced toward the different wreckages, and highlighted just such a mech: the head was torn off, as were the legs, but chest portion seemed intact. “That one. We’ll bring it with us, and when I’m done creating the environment, we’ll open it up. At least that way we’ll have something intact to dissect.”

  “Dissect!” Lori said eagerly. “Can I help dissect them?”

  “You like dissecting things?” Sophie said. “Eww.”

  “I do, I do!” Lori said.

  “She’s a weird one,” Xin said.

  “So you think these are the aliens?” Aria asked.

  “Either the aliens themselves, yes, or their surrogates,” Jason said.

  “I don’t think it’s either,” Tara said.

  Jason turned toward her. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think these are the same aliens that invaded our planet years ago...” Tara said.

  “How do you know?” Jason asked.

  “There are secret archives in the cloud,” Tara said. “Accessible by pilots like me who had to fly drones into the uninhabited zone. The purpose of those archives was to teach us about the different types of bioweapons, and how they had mutated over the years. But not all of those classified documents dealt with the mutants… there were other items. Different photographs and videos of alien atmosphere-based transports, and deep space starships.”

  “Videos of transports and starships?” Jason said. “How did we get those?”

  “There was a team known as the Bolt Eaters,” Tara said. “Mind Refurbs, much like ourselves. Their identities were leaked after they eliminated the micro machine storm that nearly destroyed our planet. Rumor has it that those same Mind Refurbs detonated the alien mothership in orbit, a mothership that belonged to a race known as the Banthar. There are hints these ‘Bolt Eaters’ were sent on other highly classified missions to infiltrate these Banthar.”

  “What kind of hints?” Jason asked.

  “The aforementioned videos of ships and transports,” Tara said. “But there were also videos of cities completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And creatures straight out of science fiction novels. Anyway, those pictures of the transports and ships? They’re completely unlike anything we’ve seen so far.”

  “It’s possible these Banthar are simply using different technology for this invasion…” Jason said.

  “I used to believe the same thing,” Tara said. “But the more we’ve fought them, the more I’ve begun to change my mind. How come we haven’t seen any micro machines, for example? Not a one. The staple weapon of the original invaders. And what about gamma ray weapons? Also absent.”

  “She’s right,” Aria said. “There haven’t been any micro machines at all, nor any gamma ray attacks. If these were Banthar, the logical choice would be to open up a wormhole and send a fresh swarm of micro machines. Not pod vessels.”

  “Also, if the Banthar did want to return, they would have done so years before,” Tara said. “I have a feeling the Bolt Eaters did something to prevent that.”

  “What about the bioweapons we faced, which have all been based on the DNA of Earth stock?” Jason said. “Only the Banthar would have that.”

  “Yes, but it’s possible that the Banthar sold that DNA on some intergalactic marketplace,” Aria said.

  “So if not the Banthar, then who?” Jason said.

  “Well, the Banthar belong to some sort of empire,” Tara said. “So it’s possible now that they’ve given up their claim on our planet, others have stepped forward to fill in the void and take their place.”

  “Intergalactic empire?” Jason said. “That sounds vaguely familiar. Like something I know, but shouldn’t… something witnessed in a half remembered dream.”

  “That would be from our combining,” Xin said. “You retain the imprints of all our memories, including Tara’s. Imprints that are more like echoes at the moment. When we combine once more, they will all come back to you. Only to be lost once again when we separate.”

  “Ah,” Jason said.

  “This is all just speculation on Tara’s part anyway,” Xin s
aid. “We don’t really know who these aliens are, and what they want. So they haven’t used gamma rays or micro machines. That doesn’t mean anything. They could still be Banthar. Or they could be something else entirely.”

  “True enough,” Tara said.

  “Either way, it looks like another alien race needs a bloody nose,” Jason said. “And so far, it looks like we’re the only ones with any capacity to give it to them. Given the conspicuous absence of all things military in the region.”

  “I blame Bokerov for that,” Tara said.

  “Yes, Bokerov,” Jason said. “Who the hell is he? What are his motivations?”

  “We know he wants alien technology,” Aria said.

  “Yes, but that’s about all we got after downloading the ruins of his AI core,” Jason said. “But there has to be more to the man.”

  “Mind Refurb, you mean,” Lori said.

  “Same difference,” Jason said. “Is he doing this for personal gain? Or perhaps to take revenge against the original invaders.”

  “Maybe he’s simply nuts?” Xin said.

  “I like how she says nuts!” Lori said. “It’s so cute!”

  “You would,” Sophie said.

  “I also like nuts in general…” Lori gave Jason a glance, and her face turned red slightly, and she giggled.

  Jason shook his head. “Well, maybe next time we encounter a Bokerov instance, we can try to leave his AI core intact.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Aria agreed.

  “Set up a compatible atmosphere for these creatures,” Jason said. “I want to see what we’re up against.”

  “Will do,” Aria said.

  “Sophie, carry the wreckage of that mech,” Jason said. “When we get back, give it to Aria. I’m sure she’ll let us know when she’s ready to dissect.”

  “I certainly will,” Aria said.

  Aria had a compatible environment set up on the third floor of the base the next day. It was a series of glass tanks, with gas intake valves on all sides, and a pair of robot arm manipulators installed on a track in the ceiling. She was able to produce the different gases she needed in her chem lab, and when she was ready, she put the wreckage of the alien mech inside, sealed the door, and then flooded the chamber with the alien atmosphere. She shared her remote cameras so that everyone could watch.