Mech Girl

by Kate Donovan

  “Right.” He gave her a confident smile. “I know I can count on you. Just distract their skirmisher like we said. I’ll do the rest.”

  “Distract them from the Quito skirmisher?” Annyak arched a skeptical eyebrow. “That will take some fancy dancing, as Zia would say. I will do my best, but I predict they will be completely focused on you, because your mech is their priority target. Be ready for that, Captain Stone.”

  Rem cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean? I figured they’d be focused on the Quito giant, not the skirmisher.”

  Annyak choked back a deep, rumbling cough. Then she explained. “They care about what is inside the giant, because Zia is the ultimate prize. But it is the red skirmisher that humiliated Alluva in the eyes of the galaxy. It felled their giant—the only time in history that has ever happened. Destroying it will be their first priority.” She coughed again, then promised, “Do not worry. I will find a way to grab their skirmisher’s attention for a few precious seconds, even if it requires me to jump down his throat.”

  When Rem just stared at her, she gave him a sympathetic smile. “Pay no attention to my drug-induced rambling. Our strategy is sound. We have Quito and her giant. And as for you and the Quito skirmisher? General Carrak believes with all her heart that you were destined to do great things in it. All of Malara believes that.”

  “Yeah, I always thought so too.”

  Annyak smiled. “Then we are agreed. Good luck, Captain Stone. It is an honor to serve with you.”

  She saluted, then turned away and walked toward the brand-new green skirmisher that had been assigned to her for this battle. Rem looked at that skirmisher, then looked at the red one with the silver breastplate—the one he had dreamed of piloting to victory since he was a child.

  The one every little boy on Earth, Malara, or Alluva wanted to pilot. The Quito skirmisher.

  “Hey, Annyak! Wait a minute,” he called out. When she turned to look at him, he explained with a rueful smile, “It looks like we need a slight change in our plan.”

  * * * *

  With her feet solidly planted in the guides, her hands in the gloves, and her body strapped into the harness, Zia reached up for the helmet and pulled it over the top of her skull, allowing the mesh to shrink into place, embracing her like an old friend. For all that she was frightened, she still loved this moment, which she now viewed as a visit with the bold, loving grandfather she had never been allowed to meet.

  Rem’s words about her father always rang in her ears at this moment: If he had lived, he never would have sent you off to school. He would have wanted you around . . .

  She knew it was true. Her father would never have sent her to boarding school. And Daniel Quito wouldn’t have done so either. He would have barred the door! Whisked her off to Malara. Taken her for rides in his skirmisher and his giant. Somehow she had always suspected that, but whenever she put the helmet on, she knew it for a fact.

  Rem’s voice came over the intercom, bringing her back to reality. “Okay, everyone. They’re about to open the door. Check your harnesses. You’ll go last, Zia. Put on a good show, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. Be careful, everyone.” Zia held her breath as the cargo bay’s huge metal door began to lower outward, becoming a ramp for the mechs. She was tempted to keep talking to Rem, but suspected it would disorient him and Annyak. Yes, they were a team, and it was important to share strategic observations, but at its core, mech piloting was a solitary business. Rem and Annyak were probably deep in their warrior rituals by this point, and didn’t need the distraction of a non-warrior’s nervous blather.

  So she remained quiet, trying not to think. Not to panic.

  The brightness of the almost-noon sun reflecting off the sand was momentarily blinding, but Zia’s colossus adjusted for it, protecting her eyes by filtering the view on the observation screen, enabling her to clearly see the Alluvan transport in the distance. There was still no sign of their mechs.

  They’re waiting for us this time, Zia realized. I wonder why? Some sort of strategy? Like we’re that easy to mind grub? That’s pathetic. Maybe they aren’t so tough after all!

  She was about to make a joke over the intercom, then she realized that the green Malaran skirmisher was moving toward the ramp, and she smiled in anticipation, remembering from the last battle that Annyak was a showoff. She had taunted the Alluvans with her prowler, and would do the same now with this even more impressive, brand-new skirmisher.

  To Zia’s delight, the skirmisher didn’t use the ramp at all. It jumped from the transport to the sand, then strode around the clearing, waving its arms in an exuberant display of confidence and style.

  “Hey, Annyak! Nice dance,” Zia said, laughing.

  “Actually,” Annyak’s voice informed her, “that is not I. It is Captain Stone.”

  “Pardon?”

  Rem quickly explained the reason behind the switch, and while Zia understood, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Rem had dreamed of this moment—had talked about it so often during practice he had sounded marginally obsessed. Now he was sacrificing it—his only opportunity to live that dream—for a tactical advantage in a battle they could never win. Wouldn’t it have been better to have his own blaze of glory courtesy of the Quito skirmisher?

  “You’re up, Annyak,” Rem announced.

  “Right away, sir.” Annyak strolled down the ramp in the red skirmisher as though she had all the time in the world, proceeding all the way to a leafy blue-green tree on the edge of the clearing, where she stood in the shade as though completely uninvolved in the drama.

  Zia smiled wistfully. It was a brilliant way to taunt the Alluvans. Even if they hadn’t intended to target the red skirmisher first, they would do so now. The insult was just too flagrant—and comical—to be ignored.

  “Quito? How are you doing?” Rem asked. “Nervous?”

  “I’m too busy laughing,” Zia assured him. “Don’t worry, Captain, I’m ready for them. I didn’t know it till right now, but I am.”

  It was true. She had been performing her whole life on one stage or another. Playing a role, having fun, mind grubbing the opposition. It might not have been the most prudent strategy, but it had always worked for her, especially against an uninspired opponent. She just had to find a way to make it work for her—and for Malara—now.

  “Okay, Grandpa, let’s dazzle them,” she instructed the giant, and it literally read her mind. Striding down the ramp, she marched to the middle of the clearing, raised both arms, and fired her cannons into the sky in a playful salute to General Carrak, whom she knew was glued to a window on the transport.

  Rem’s laughter was audible. “Nice, Quito. They definitely know you’re not just for show. But try to conserve ammo from now on, okay? You’ll need it to engage their colossus, assuming they ever unload their mechs. I wonder what they’re waiting for.”

  “They are too frightened to come out,” Annyak joked.

  Zia would have laughed, but she could hear the muffled sounds of Annyak coughing, and there was nothing funny about that.

  Oh, my God, she’s infected.

  Zia had heard some gruesome stories of how quickly the infection could spread through a Malaran’s body. That would have been bad enough, but Annyak was already weak due to internal injuries that hadn’t fully healed, not to mention stitches across her entire torso that the doctors were sure could rip open in a direct collision.

  We must be crazy, Zia realized unhappily. It’s really just Rem versus three healthy, well-trained, pissed-off pilots! And two of them are piloting giants. We’re doomed.

  “Heads up, they’re coming out,” Rem warned his team.

  Zia and her giant turned their attention to the Alluvan transport. The door had just opened, and the first colossus marched down the ramp. He was all business—a gleaming, gunmetal-gray giant without any other color or adornment. The expression on his face was so menacing it made his whole body seem huger and more ferocious. Zia half expected him to strid
e right over to her and rip her apart, but he moved to the right side of the Alluvan clearing and stood perfectly still, patiently awaiting the signal that would allow him to obliterate his foes.

  Then the second giant emerged and Zia groaned in disbelief. It was painted entirely in gold, looking more like an idol than a warrior. Just as the first Alluvan giant had done, it strode with confidence until it reached a corresponding position on the left side of the clearing. Then he too waited for the bloodbath to begin.

  Finally, a black skirmisher marched down the ramp. When he reached the bottom, he executed a jump that landed him precisely in the middle of the clearing, where he stood flanked by the two towering giants. Then he raised his right arm till it was horizontal with the ground, moved forward a bit, and turned until he was pointing directly at the red Quito skirmisher.

  The message was clear: they wanted to destroy that skirmisher first.

  And now Annyak was the target.

  “They’re falling right into our trap,” Rem told his team. “Thirty seconds till the signal. Zee? You okay?”

  “I’m good,” she murmured. “Distract, engage, run away. Right?”

  “Yeah, and don’t worry. It looks like Annyak was right. They’re saving you for last.”

  * * * *

  Distract, engage, run away. Distract, engage, run away.

  When the signal sounded, Zia was ready. The gold Alluvan colossus was directly across from her, and even though she was too far away to hit him, she fired a shot directly at his torso, just to be sure he knew she was coming for him. It was the least she could do for Annyak, who was rushing forward, right into the path of two Alluvan mechs: the black skirmisher and the iron-gray colossus.

  Splitting her viewing screen, Zia advanced on the gold giant, but kept an eye on Rem in the green skirmisher. He was pretending to back Annyak up, but she knew he was ready to make his move as soon as the chance presented itself.

  Then the gold giant changed course and began moving away from Zia and toward Annyak—three mechs on one. It was a frightening sight, and Zia wondered what Rem was thinking as he witnessed it. He had always bragged about the versatility and superiority of skirmishers, but in the face of two giants, the smaller mechs looked almost laughable.

  Except there was nothing funny about it. If Zia didn’t do something immediately, Annyak and Rem would both be killed before they could strike a single blow.

  She needed to stop watching and start engaging, so she focused on the gold giant and strode toward him at full speed, firing wildly. It definitely got his attention, and he turned to face Zia as though surprised she was capable of mounting any kind of assault at all.

  My God, they were never really afraid of me, she realized angrily. They always knew I was an untrained, undisciplined foghead. If I had shown up in the first battle, maybe they would have been concerned. But I wasn’t good enough then, so five days later, they know I still can’t be good enough.

  The plan was falling apart. Rem and Carrak had assumed that the Quito giant would impress the Alluvans, but unless Daniel Quito climbed out of his grave and showed up on Jairqua, the giant was useless.

  Except, it was possible Daniel Quito had climbed out of his grave. Wasn’t it? Not into the body of Zia, but into Rem Stone. Wasn’t that what Carrak had said on the transport?

  All Rem needed was a little distraction, and if the Alluvans thought Zia incapable of that, they clearly hadn’t been watching the right tabloid vids.

  Focusing completely on the gold giant, who was now barely within range, Zia fired her cannons again, hitting him squarely in the head. He reeled, and while he wasn’t in danger of toppling, he was visibly disoriented, right up to the moment when he reoriented himself in Zia’s direction.

  That’s right, golden boy. The action’s over here if you’ve got the guts for it.

  The Alluvan came at her so fast, it was as if he had a “run” mode on his mech, and Zia yelped as she dashed off to the side with him in pursuit. Still she managed to fire two more shots, both to his torso, both dead center. Terrified, she dared to glance away from the main viewer for a second, just in time to see Annyak—in the Quito skirmisher—collide in midair with the black Alluvan skirmisher, while the gunmetal giant fired mercilessly at her.

  None of the Alluvans noticed Rem sneak into position behind the gray colossus. He jumped into the air, raining fire down onto the huge mech, blinding him, then crashing into him, toppling him to the ground.

  The gold giant whirled toward the disaster, but was too far away to effectively offer assistance. All he could do was stare at the rubble that had once been four glorious mechs.

  The Quito skirmisher lay in a motionless heap.

  The gunmetal giant? Never had a mech looked so dead.

  The black Alluvan skirmisher had been flung to the side and was twitching without really moving.

  And Rem’s green Malaran skirmisher? It was the most mangled of them all.

  “Rem!” Zia wailed. “Annyak! Are you okay? Oh, God . . .”

  To Zia’s horror, the gold giant began to run toward her friends, clearly intending to finish them off. Without thinking, she raced after him. When he was almost within range of the Quito skirmisher, Zia began firing—again and again and again—with a fury she had never known she could muster.

  He turned, seemingly incredulous again, then pointed at her the way the black skirmisher had pointed at Annyak at the beginning of the battle.

  He was going to kill Zia now.

  And even worse, he had help. Because the black Alluvan skirmisher was on its feet again, and while a little shaky, it had clearly noted where a new onslaught was needed, and it was closing in fast behind its golden comrade, ready to put an end once and for all to the legendary Quito mystique.

  Chapter 18

  Rem’s ears were clanging and his eyes were seeing double, but at least he was alive. He couldn’t say as much for his green skirmisher, which was sparking and flaming all around him. Debris and smoke filled the pilot compartment. Nothing worked—not the view screen, not the cannons, and certainly not the mechanical limbs.

  The intercom was gone too. Through the windshield, Rem could see that Annyak was even worse off than he was. In fact, she was almost certainly dead.

  And Zia? She was going to be dead in a few seconds, too, but for the moment, she was alive, firing like a crazy woman, running at the gold giant as if it had just murdered her entire family. Which he supposed in a sense was true.

  He needed to help her, even though it seemed impossible. Maybe if he ran over to her, he could climb inside the Quito giant and help her strategize. But could he get there in time?

  The red skirmisher is a lot closer. Maybe Annyak’s intercom is still functional, he decided as he unfastened his harness and began digging in the rubble, looking for his flight bag, which contained his blaster and his oxygenator. You can help Zee strategize from there.

  He finally spotted the bag, but it was crushed under a mangled panel, completely inaccessible. Frustrated, Rem yanked open the mech’s emergency cabinet, but there was no oxygenator there.

  Of course not. They love breathing this foul air! But it’s gonna kill you if you dare go out in it.

  Reminding himself that he was dead anyway—and at least death-by-particulates was a slow one, allowing him to help Zia in the meantime—Rem grabbed a sheet of sterile cloth from the medical kit. Then he forced open the hatch door, took a deep breath, plastered the cloth over his mouth and nose, and sprinted the fifty yards between himself and the red Quito skirmisher.

  * * * *

  Zia could hear herself screaming in terror and agony, but didn’t even try to get it under control. No one could hear her anyway, and at least it was proof she was still alive. That and the fact that she kept firing. And firing. Running and then firing. Screaming and firing. It all blurred together in a frenzied free-for-all that she could only pray was making a shambles of the Alluvans’ strategy.

  Through it all, her giant was perf
orming like a true hero. Every shot connected with the Alluvan colossus or the black skirmisher as if by magic. The colossus was firing back, but the skirmisher seemed unable to fire anything. No cannons, no blasters. That was the good news.

  But he could move, and he could jump. She knew, because he was doing both, circling her, trying to get into the perfect position to nail her, while the gold giant assaulted her with massive bursts of cannon fire. For all that Zia and her giant were agile—especially compared to the gold giant—they simply couldn’t move like a skirmisher, and she was almost ready to stop trying. She didn’t need to die in this fight. She could die on Alluva by lethal-but-painless injection.

  Except she hated these two creeps so violently, her only thought was to reduce them to smoldering heaps of mangled metal like they had done to her friends.

  To Rem.

  Tears of fury and grief streamed down her face, and she wanted to wipe them away, but didn’t dare remove her hands from her gloves even for an instant. She had to keep firing. Waving her arms. Running and sidestepping. Staying alive long enough to inflict new and crueler damage.

  Finally they had her. The black skirmisher was directly in front of her, ready to jump. The gold giant was in front of her too, but off to one side, not firing anymore.

  He doesn’t want to hit his skirmisher, she realized unhappily. This is it, Zee. That creep is going to topple you and there’s nothing more you can do about it.

  Then she saw movement behind the gold giant, and this time she really did take her hand from her glove and wipe her eyes, just to be sure they weren’t deceiving her.

  It was the Quito skirmisher!

  “Annyak?” she whispered, not daring to believe it.

  The intercom crackled and hissed, as though the transmitter in the red skirmisher was struggling to stay alive as much as the combatants were.