Nemesis (The MechaVerse Trilogy Book 2)

by Jeremy Cunkle

  Kurtis shook his head no, pleading with his eyes but caved in after Mikkhael stared him down, “Its name is Nemesis. No one remembers how the idea started or where it even came from. Aurora sent us every detail of every battle you fought. Each time we tore the data apart, running every scenario imaginable, always trying to find ways to improve Starkindler so that we could send you the upgrades. Its design was maxed out though, every little detail. Our first attempt was a true masterpiece and Starkindler was an amazing design, something only seen once in a generation. The only way to improve on it was to start again from the ground up.”

  Alyona took over, as if accepting the blame. “We realize how dumb this sounds, and its not an excuse. It was almost as if Nemesis was always there; hiding in the shadows, just out of reach of our conscious thought. When you looked for it, it disappeared. But sometimes we could catch it out of our peripheral vision, lurking there, watching. And then, one day it just appeared in the simulator. Spontaneous existence, I know, believe me we all know. But it’s true. None of us knew how long it was there before we found it, but none of us input the data for it. We never found the solution. From the beginning it was as if it spawned into being simply out of its desire to be piloted by you.”

  “We argued about what to do with it for a long time. In the simulator it was the only thing that could put up a fight against Starkindler, so we ended up building it as a concept idea in order to gain insight for the second generation of Starkindler. It was the one Mech that could go toe-to-toe with you because it was you. In the way that Aurora’s job was to compensate for your weaknesses in battle and complement your strengths, pairing with you to operate Starkindler at its full capacity; well, Nemesis is the complete opposite, tailored entirely to you, building off your strengths and boosting them to unimaginable levels. Starkindler was intended to lead a squadron and operate in a team during combat; Nemesis was built in order to completely dominate the battlefield by itself. A one man vanguard if you will.”

  Under Commander Ultor’s instructions, teams of technicians mixed with security details headed to the airship, lowering the cargo door as the impromptu confab continued. Seeing nothing dangerous enough to keep them from entering, they swarmed the inside of the cargo bay, checking containers of materials as well as crawling across the Mech armor they found inside. For their flight to Mars, the strange new Mech armor were housed in horizontal portable service bays bolted directly to the floor of the cargo bay, packed into place by crate after crate of materials on top and all around them.

  Once they confirmed everything was safe enough, Commander Ultor gave clearance for the technicians to begin offloading the materials as well as the new Mech armor. Teams formed as cranes and unloading equipment swung into action, efficiently sorting and removing the crates, placing them in piles around the perimeter of the hangar. Silence fell as nearly everyone stopped to watch the first of the new Mech armor unload. In order for them to be unloaded, each individual bay was successively winched into an upright position while an enormous flatbed crawler slowly trundled into position. Overhead cranes transferred the Mech to the crawler, struggling with its incredible weight, and then once loaded the crawler trundled in reverse to the sides of the hangar where there were empty service bays. Service crews would spend the next few days converting the bays to accommodate the bulk of the new machines. Once in place, the crawler lifted its bed upright, standing the new Mech armor up for all to see.

  Seeing the mammoth dull-white machine standing upright was simply yet another punch to Mikkhael’s gut. He stared with obvious confusion at the machine, knowing without asking that it belonged to Alyona, but for all intent was Starkindler reincarnated. A few differences immediately presented themselves, but most of the gathered StormCrows seemed to agree with him as the murmurs of confusion grew, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind as to the origin of Starkindler. Crews stepped into action, removing the steel cable restraints and coils that held the giant war machine in place. Her Mech armor would be fully customized to match her personality the same as his had been; adept, capable of handling almost anything the two came across, the perfect all-rounder combat specialist.

  Kurtis stood next to him, leaving him unaware of when he had stepped so close, leaning over to whisper conspiratorially in his ear, glancing nervously at the back of the cargo bay as if whatever was still hidden in its belly could hear them. “Mikkhael, I need to warn you about something; Nemesis was never intended for actual combat. We built it as a proof of concept. It was designed with only you as the pilot in mind, and, once completed it has rejected anyone who attempted to pilot it. On top of that, Nemesis uses a new AI specific to it, one that is entirely dedicated to achieving your maximum combat capability regardless of the cost. During its construction, all of the data from your battles in Starkindler was loaded into its programming in order to help it spar against our custom Mech’s. The idea was for us to pit the most powerful war machines in the universe against one another and learn as much as we could from the results, but we never once won against Nemesis … ever. It will do anything it takes to win, and I really do mean anything. The AI has fused itself with the physical chassis, becoming a single entity, and it is evil. That machine is nothing like the hope that Starkindler represented. Honestly, it scares the shit out of us.”

  Alyona was staring into the cargo bay of the airship, just as they all were. Technically, they were watching the crawler offload the second Mech armor, a colossal machine even larger than the first, painted a muted hunter’s green that made the light shift and dance off its heavily armored bulk. Unlike the first unit, this one was wingless, featuring multiple cannons on each arm, supplemented by secondary cannons attached to the back and laying over its shoulders for support. The beast in front of them supported itself on powerful legs, allowing it to run quickly or jump far in the limited Martian gravity.

  Kiryl beamed as he stared with pride at his creation, unaware of the warning Kurtis quietly passed along, turning to Mikkhael to explain, “I named it Intrepid, and its purpose is crowd control. She may not be able to fly, but her weapon capacity is nearly twice that of Alyonas, and her armor is three times as thick. We had to double the size of the reactor just to power the additional weapons and energy shields. She doesn’t just give out beatings; she can really take one and keep going.”

  The explanations continued as the crawler finished hauling Kiryl’s Mech armor to its new home and was once again retracing its steps heading to retrieve another unit. Alyona pointed to her machine, which the capable and now well-practiced technicians were already examining in detail under Chief engineer Sir Henry Thorsten’s personal direction. “I always thought that once we arrived, I would fight side-by-side with you and Starkindler, like paired duelist swords. Starkindler and DawnsLight, two beacons of hope for this planet that so desperately needs any it can find. For now, DawnsLight will have to act as Starkindler’s meager replacement. Starting tomorrow we will begin rebuilding Starkindler, I promise you Mikkhael.”

  Mixed waves of emotions choked Mikkhael, preventing him from speaking. He could not bring himself to tell his friends, his family, who had crossed a huge part of the solar system to be with and help him, during the time he needed them more than anything else in the universe. After everything they had done for him, sacrificed for him, he could not find a way to tell them that he could not live up to their expectations. He would never be able to fly or fight again. Each kind gesture and word of encouragement they gave him only served to twist, that much more, the knife inside of him.

  Mistaking Mikkhael’s silence for encouragement, Alyona continued to explain as crews winched Vera’s Mech armor onto the crawler. “Kiryl, Vera, and I will share an AI, named Athena, duplicated from Aurora’s original code but more focused on combat superiority. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, slow to anger, who only fought for just causes, patron goddess of heroic endeavors; we just couldn’t resist. Kurtis will use his own AI, Argos, which he is still developing, extensively modifying i
ts abilities for cyber warfare, surpassing even Aurora. He is our secret weapon. And, as part of the process of rebuilding Starkindler, we’ll also find out what is happening with Aurora and fix it. What you were able to accomplish with a single Mech armor and one AI was amazing; we will soon have five Mech armor and three different AI’s and we will shake this world to its core.”

  Alyona narrated a quick synopsis of their time apart, embarrassed to admit they changed their end of the agreement that they were to remain on Earth and support him from there, but also unwilling to give-in to the fact that they were here now to fight with him. “You were right by the way. Alice Springs is completely destroyed. It took them a long time to figure out what we were up to, but once they did, the UN laid siege to us for nearly two months. They were preparing a final attack when we left, so we blew up the base with them inside, destroying all the evidence along with them. We can never return to Earth, so whether you like it or not this is our home too, now, and you’re just going to have to accept that.”

  “You were never supposed to build other Mech armor; your role was simply to develop new modifications for Starkindler.” Mikkhael said bitterly, more venom lacing his voice than he intended, but they had betrayed his trust on multiple levels and he was not going to easily forgive that.

  Done checking over his unit, Kiryl re-joined the conversation. “We didn’t make the decision lightly’ to build our own Mech’s, so you can stop right there with the self-righteous bullshit. It took some time, but we individually reached the same conclusion you did almost two years ago now, that our future is out here with you, saving this planet from itself.” He leaned forward a bit, looking around to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear as he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “The designs left to us were more abundant than we realized. As we kept digging through our parents’ research, we continued to find different mods and variations for the base frame that we built Starkindler from, so it was only natural that we began building our own Mech armor. It was what they intended all along. We’ve only caught glimpses, but the movement against the corrupt governments of our generation has more layers to it than one simple Mech created by a dozen idealists’, with more layers to it than an onion . We were meant to be part of something so much bigger, but they didn’t have time to tell us before their passing and now it’s up to us to decide how to use the tools they left behind.”

  Changing the subject, Kiryl switched back to the base in Alice Springs. “In order to avoid UN detection for as long as possible, anything we bought, or made, was in bulk, operating the same way a real base would have. So we didn’t just have repair materials for you, we had entire warehouses full of some of the most rare materials on Earth.” Kiryl paused for a minute, chuckling at the irony. “Day-after-day of using the simulators, testing our parents designs and seeing all of those raw materials just sitting around … it started innocently enough, but it wasn’t long at all until we each had prototype models worked out. Our excuse, at first was that PDF units couldn’t put up enough of a fight against Starkindler, and Nemesis wasn’t around yet, so we were making our own ideal candidates that could stand their own as a way to constantly push the limits of what you could do and show how we could improve upon it. Starkindler kept winning in the simulations, and after a few months of that we had full-fledged units up and running. Each of us picked different specialties to test for weaknesses, but it’s a fantastic all-round design, so perfectly well balanced we had to take each of our concepts to the extreme, unable to hold back at all.”

  Waiting a moment as the crawler moved past them carrying Vera’s dull metallic purple unit named Atalanta, after the mythical Greek huntress. Her machine would become invisible in the Martian dust even without the need of metamaterials, a large rifle on its arm lending credence to the huntress’ lineage. The Earthers stood proudly in the shadows of their machine kinfolks, admiring Vera’s unit as it passed. A plasma based sniper rifle attached to its right arm, efficiency and power combining in equal parts, rendering the weapon an almost feline sense of balance grace. Compartments in the arms were open, showing that they were hollow for holding the capacitors needed to store enough energy to fire the extremely lethal long-range weapon. The left arm would use a grip on the rifle where the barrel met the stock, steadying it for long-range shots. Smaller projectile cannons were underslung along the Mech’s arms with pods for the missiles on its back.

  After watching a moment, Kiryl went on to explain their presence on Mars. “We aren’t sure what finally tipped off the UN. They spent months investigating us, wasting time while one of Aurora’s AI shells ran circles around them covering our tracks. From the beginning, we knew that at some point they would find out what we were up to, we just hoped we would have more time before they did; so we worked as quickly as we could around the clock. Aurora’s shell warned us before they began to get serious and we hired several different private security services to man the base. Wow, were they confused when the UN showed up to attack a base that belonged to them.” The new Mars arrivals all had a good laugh at that. “Enough money solves nearly anything though, we tripled their pay and told ‘em to look scary and that’s exactly what they did. It was enough to keep the UN from storming the base for a few months and buy us the time we needed. Thankfully, they wasted a few weeks laying siege to us, surrounding the base with police and military units while attempting to talk us to death. We needed time to finish our models and load the spare materials onto the shuttle, the delay was just barely enough.”

  “And Nemesis? Where the hell did that come from?” Mikkhael accused them angrily.

  “Alyona spoke true when she said one day it wasn’t there and then the next it just was. None of us remember building it. We found plans for it pretty far into the design process of our own units. They weren’t yet able to keep up with Starkindler. In our spare time, we all worked on Nemesis’ design, but that was all in the simulator. Unlike our Mech armor, we never actually built a working model. Eventually, we discovered the AI assigned to Nemesis had commandeered the fabricators and built the physical unit itself. Trust me, that wasn’t the last time that thing scared the shit out of us. When the UN began to get serious about storming the base, we were actually planning to destroy Nemesis instead of bringing him with us but they attacked before we could. So, long story short, we loaded it onto the shuttle instead of taking the chance that they might capture it and we brought it with us so we could destroy it here.”

  Before Mikkhael could go on the attack, Alyona anticipated him and headed him off with a disarming smile as she took over. “You should have seen the look on their faces when we launched the shuttle in the middle of their attack. They had absolutely no idea we were going to leave the planet.”

  Like a volcano finally losing control, Mikkhael unleashed his full verbal fury with pure vitriol. “So we need to prepare to fight off the UN when they come to finish the job in a few months as well as the PDF here and now, is that right? You can’t kill them, make them look like fools, just expect to walk away, and have them forget it!”

  Vera placed her hand on his shoulder to calm him a bit; his rage was building to the point he might do something incredibly rash and dangerous, and she knew that she was the only one able to head it off. She spoke softly, but directly. “The UN will not follow. You should have been communicating with Aurora. Alice Springs was destroyed along with all the evidence we did not bring with us. We left nothing for them. They will save face and cover up the fact that they were tricked and outmaneuvered so badly, because to do anything else would carry far too many consequences for them. Their PR machine is already spinning stories about how terrorists overloaded the reactor on a base that was supposed to be dormant, sending it critical until it melted down, covering the area in enough radiation that no one can approach near it. It’s in everyone’s best interests for that to remain their official story.”

  “On top of that, there’s more. Since your one man campaign against the PDF, rebel attacks a
gainst Mars Industries have increased dramatically. They’ve destroyed numerous freighters taking raw materials back to Earth. Shortages back home have become acute, especially in the more populated zones. Before leaving for here, tensions boiled over in several areas. China and several of its allies declared war on the Russian bloc. Like always, the Russians took advantage of the shortages and hiked their prices way too high for everyday people to afford. The Chinese will do anything it takes to keep their people placated, and they were left with no choice except to declare war and take what they needed by force. Their need for the sparsely populated resource rich territory of the Russian bloc was purely to appease their own population and avoid their government being overthrown. The century old rivalry between India and Pakistan is being stoked to radical levels from all sides; with daily battles occurring on the borders, it’s open warfare in everything but name.”

  “Europe is awash with terrorist attacks. They’re battling a full-blown radical Islamic insurgency after having taking in so many refugees during previous crises. Their society is being overrun, radicalizing opposing elements that are beginning to fight back. Just like in the fable where the scorpion asks the frog to carry it across the river because it can’t swim and then halfway across it stings the frog, drowning and killing them both because the scorpion can’t change its nature. Just like thhe scorpion, the radical Muslims can’t keep themselves from self-destructing no matter where they are. The North American Territorial Alliance might still command enough forces to hunt us down, but we gave them no cause. With their military power declining year after year because of mismanagement, they too will make enough excuses to avoid pursuing us. The UN is busy trying to keep the whole damn Federation from imploding and Earth from going up in flames. For the time being, we can concentrate on the PDF.”

  Mikkhael shook his head. “You make it sound so easy and neat, like knocking over a few bowling pins. Killing isn’t like that. Soldiers fight back. They are fighting for their right to live too; it’s just that they’re often betrayed by their own governments giving them vastly inferior equipment. I’ve fought against many strong opponents that, should we have fought on equal terms, the results may have been very different; and now you are telling me that they are finally beginning to get that equipment.