Meltdown (Mech Wars Book 3)

by Scott Bartlett

  What he needed.

  “Where is my mate?” he bellowed as he rampaged through the city streets, across sidewalks and through roadways, firing energy at structures as often as he did at living beings, wrecking both. “Where is my soul?”

  A Quatro emerged onto the street he charged along, from a lane that ran perpendicular to it. He’d been about to send an energy blast that way, but he reined himself in at the last instant.

  “My love…” the Quatro said.

  Wound took a stuttering step forward, and then he came to a halt, scrutinizing the female Quatro that had come before him.

  “My…my soul?”

  Part of him rejoiced at the sight of her, but another part couldn’t seem to accept it. That part of him hadn’t ever expected to find her here. Not really. That part knew that this killing spree had never truly been about finding her—it had been about something else entirely, something the whispers would reveal to him in time.

  “It is I,” she said.

  “No,” he said quietly. And then, much louder: “No!” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “You are not real. You are an impostor.”

  “It is truly I, my soul.”

  “Impossible! Your claim makes a mockery of my love’s memory. She is gone, long gone, and there was never any hope of our reunion, except in my dreams. Do not cheapen my memories by attempting to trick me!”

  “My love…”

  “No!”

  Wound turned, scrambling back the way he’d come, almost losing his footing as he fled.

  Seeing his long-lost mate, real or not…for some reason, it had ruined everything he’d wanted to accomplish here. Her appearance meant he couldn’t be here right now. It meant he needed to be far away, as soon as possible.

  At last, after dashing through streets and lanes and alleyways, retracing his route with the help of his suit’s HUD, he found the building where he’d first surfaced.

  Wound leapt through the hole he’d made in the outer wall, and then he fled down the jagged mouth that had once been the door to the basement.

  Wound fled back through the tunnel he’d dug.

  Chapter 4

  Swath of Destruction

  As Gabe reached the bottom of the hill atop which the Quatro had started their tunnel, Ash appeared before him in the dream, looking harried. During remote communications, the dream rendered her as outside of her mech, and her face had paled, her short wheat-colored hair glistening with sweat.

  “Sir. Did you get the alert?” she asked, somewhat breathless.

  “What alert?”

  “Ingress is under attack by a quad! It must have still been inside the tunnel all along.”

  “Damn it,” Gabe spat, using his momentum to run up the incline, turn in a tight arc, and then head back toward the city.

  “What’s happening?” Captain Arkady Black asked, from where he still sat, strapped to Gabe’s shoulder. “Why have we reversed direction?”

  “There’s a quad inside Ingress.”

  “I see. Let me down, then, Roach. I have to go meet the commander of the Ingress garrison.”

  “Negative. I don’t intend to slow down, and at this speed, you’ll be injured in the fall if I release you.”

  “I’m giving you an order, Chief!”

  “And I’m ignoring it. I told you. I’m done with Darkstream.”

  “Darkstream isn’t done with you,” Black muttered darkly. “Of that, I can assure you.”

  Ingress’ gates stood open, probably from the passage of the five MIMAS mechs piloted by Sweeney, Arkanian, Jin, Gonzalez, and Lafontaine. Gabe ran through, ignoring the guards who cried out in surprise as much as inquiry.

  It didn’t take long for him to find evidence of the quad’s presence—buildings smashed open, blackened speeders lying belly-up on streets and sidewalks alike—and, worst of all, the charred remnants of human corpses.

  The swath of destruction stretched in two directions, and after a brief study of the damage the alien had done, Gabe chose to sprint to his right, basing his decision on which way most of the scorch marks faced.

  He didn’t have long to go before finding something entirely unexpected. It was a Quatro, but one that wore no armor. Even though Gabe commanded his arms to take shape as massive energy cannons, his confusion caused him to hesitate momentarily, which saved the alien’s life.

  “Wait,” it said, and the fact it could speak took Gabe aback even more. He’d known they must have had some way of communicating with the mercenaries—else, their alliance would have never come about, and even if it had, conducting it would have been a logistical nightmare.

  Still, he hadn’t expected to hear one of the beasts speak to him so plainly. And the way the thing had spoken to him had been deliberate, measured, even though it had only said one word, her tone …

  Intelligent. The analysis of both Gabe and his alien mech was that the being before him possessed a high degree of intelligence.

  That’s not going to do much for my nightmares of slaughtering Quatro. He still had those, and they tormented him even more, now that he spent every second inside the dream.

  “Let me down,” Black demanded, and Gabe did, rapidly generating a grasper smaller than the mech’s regular hands to pluck the captain from his shoulder and set him on the ground, somewhat roughly.

  With a brief glare for Gabe, Black headed down a nearby lane.

  Gabe turned to the alien. “Are you the Quatro that was attacking this city?” he bellowed.

  “I am not. But I just confronted the one that was, and he fled.” The Quatro paused, then added: “He is known to me.”

  Gabe glared at the alien for a moment, his blood pounding hotly through his circulatory system, which was newly encased in metal. His brain ached.

  Then, cursing, he ran straight toward the Quatro.

  It braced itself against the ground, as though preparing for battle, and he screamed, “Get out of my way!”

  The Quatro did, and he charged past, toward the city walls.

  “Someone deal with that beast!” he yelled as he ran, hoping that members of the city garrison lingered nearby.

  We can’t allow a Quatro to roam the city, whether it’s piloting a quad or not.

  “Do not hurt him!” the Quatro called after Gabe, which surprised him all over again.

  Does it really expect me to spare an enemy who slaughtered dozens of my own?

  Just before reaching Ingress’ wall, he ignited his launch thrusters, which carried his bulk up and over the towering barrier of steel. Atop it, a handful of civilians were using the wall as a viewing gallery, and their heads tracked Gabe’s progress through the air.

  Those directly below him would feel some of the heat of his passage, he knew.

  Serves them right. Hopefully it will teach them to stand idly by while others fight, as though battle were some sort of spectator sport.

  The exhaust wouldn’t harm them, at this distance, so he considered the discomfort they would experience acceptable.

  He came crashing down outside the city, hitting the ground running—straight for the hilltop, where he knew the quad would emerge.

  The brittle, short-clipped grass blurred below him, and the hill grew quickly in his sight. It still shocked him to experience the sheer speed with which he could cross distances inside his new body.

  He caught the quad just as it was scampering out of the tunnel, and he barreled into it, sending them both careening down the steep hill. They tumbled, rolled, and flipped down the incline, locked together by Gabe’s death grip.

  At the bottom of the hill, he managed to channel their momentum by bodyslamming the alien mech into the hard-packed ground, causing the earth to tremor.

  As the alien regained its feet, Gabe willed his arms to become broadswords, and he adopted a ready stance, facing his adversary.

  But the Quatro had no interest in fighting him. Instead, it retreated the moment it regained its feet, limping slightly at first, but quickly recover
ing.

  Gabe cursed once again, ordering his broadswords to become energy turrets and sending white-hot threads across the plain to chase the quad.

  But the Quatro randomized its path skillfully, and only one of the shots connected with it, causing it to stumble to the left before it recovered once again.

  With that, the quad was gone, disappeared beyond a shallow rise near the horizon.

  Gabe might have chased it, but it could have taken hours to catch up. Days, possibly. And he felt bound to return to Ingress and make sure the Quatro he’d left there hadn’t harmed anyone else.

  He turned toward the city again, vowing to find the quad that had escaped him, and to make it pay.

  Chapter 5

  The Beast

  “Clear,” Lisa said over the militia-wide channel, which was the signal for the other half of her fighters, led by Tessa Notaras, to leapfrog ahead of her own squad to scout the next street while Lisa’s squad provided covering fire.

  Lisa swept everything she could see with her assault rifle’s scope while keeping a close eye on her HUD, which would represent enemy units with red squares the moment she or one of her soldiers identified them.

  Other than Rug, all the Quatro remained with the shuttles. They were too big to fit inside the cockpits, but they were perfectly capable of crouching just outside them with energy weapons trained on the Darkstream pilots, who’d been informed that any wrong moves would result in their summary deaths.

  Andy’s back there, too. Andy, whose infection was festering. I won’t let you die. Not when we’re this close.

  By using the leapfrogging technique, they were able to move safely and fairly swiftly. Before long, Tessa’s squad spotted Rug surrounded by five of Darkstream’s new MIMAS mechs. The HUD colored Rug in yellow, and a second after that, Tessa patched through a visual feed as well.

  But Lisa wanted to see her friend with her own eyes. She ordered her squad to proceed with caution as she slowly advanced herself.

  One of the mech’s heads turned toward her as she approached, seeming to see her coming. Underneath the patina of battle damage each mech bore, they all had differing designs. This one had yellow swirls covering its face and body.

  “You’re Lisa Sato,” the mech said in a feminine voice, which sounded like it belonged to someone Lisa’s age.

  “I am,” Lisa said. “Who are you?”

  “Seaman Apprentice Ash Sweeney. But that’s not your concern right now. What’s of much greater concern is why you’ve entered Ingress without permission from the Darkstream garrison, accompanied by this Quatro with whom you appear to be allied.”

  “We skipped customs because we thought we could prevent that Quatro mech from killing more people. Also, we have someone in our party in dire need of medical attention.” Lisa cleared her throat, struggling to meet the giant robot’s gaze. She was certain the mech’s visage had been designed to appear both menacing and impersonal at the same time. “As for my Quatro friend, whose name is Rug, she saved my life, along with forty-one of her brethren. Those same Quatro helped us to retake Habitat 2 from criminals. Most of the ones who helped us are now dead, but those that remain have accompanied us here.”

  “Yes, they accompanied you inside shuttles you hijacked from our mutual employer,” Sweeney said, her voice cold. “Tell me: did these Quatro also help you kill Commander Laudano and his soldiers? There’s a warrant out for your arrest, Lisa Sato.”

  Lisa had no answer for that. How could she make this metal-clad company loyalist understand the necessity of defeating Laudano?

  Lisa almost laughed at herself. Company loyalist. She’s no different than I was, mere days ago. “Commander Laudano conspired with Quentin Cooper—the leader of a criminal gang called Daybreak—to consign the residents of Habitat 2 to slavery.”

  Now, it was the mech pilot’s turn to fall silent, and the mech itself remained perfectly still. Near her, one of the other mechs twitched, which Lisa interpreted as shock at the specter she’d just raised.

  But do they accept it as truth? She knew it couldn’t possibly be that easy. Nevertheless, we must try.

  Without warning, a larger, darker mech charged out of a side alley, tackling Rug with a jagged shoulder and sending the massive alien flying to crash into a nearby office building.

  “No!” Lisa cried, sprinting forward to place herself between Rug and the strange mech, who she recognized from the system net vids of the recent battle. She raised her palms toward it.

  “Get out of my way,” a deep voice boomed as the mech’s arms became massive cannons, inside which energy began to collect and coalesce. That voice, while recognizable as human, was stripped of everything connected to humanity.

  Its owner has endured incredible torment. That, Lisa knew straight away.

  “I will not,” she said, proud that her voice shook only slightly.

  “Gabriel Roach,” Tessa called, her own voice totally firm. “Is that you inside that bucket?”

  Slowly, the alien mech turned to face Tessa, not lowering its energy cannons by a centimeter. “Tessa Notaras,” it growled, working through the words as though they were mouthfuls of taffy. “You dare return here?”

  “Only for great need.”

  “I told you never to return. Because of the evil you helped perpetrate. Have you come back to do more evil?”

  “I’ve come to help finally correct it.” Tessa stepped toward the mech, looking much more resolute than Lisa thought she herself could have managed. “You want to talk evil, Roach? Let’s talk about our employer, who you’ve continued to work for.”

  “I don’t work for them anymore.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Tessa said, “That must be a very recent development, then. Because for seventeen years, you remained in the employ of the beast who ordered me to perpetrate the very evil you banished me for. I was blind to that hypocrisy, then—blinded by guilt. But since leaving for Alex, I’ve had a long time to think about what happened between us. Darkstream is profit-mad, and its main vehicle for profit is an expanding campaign of exploitation and terror. It’s always been that way, and recently it’s gotten much worse. They’ve already enslaved the population of Habitat 2. Next, they’ll certainly do the same to everyone on Alex. But it all started here, didn’t it? With their genocide of the Quatro, who we both know aren’t the demons they tricked everyone into thinking they were. Not even close.”

  “A Quatro killed the only woman I ever loved,” Roach said, and for the first time, Tessa was visibly taken aback.

  So Lisa spoke up, addressing Roach. “The Quatro you just attacked, Rug, is certain her brethren were provoked into war.”

  The alien mech shook its head. “Even if I accepted that, I would never work with someone as duplicitous as you, Tessa. The news that you helped murder Commander Laudano and his soldiers only makes me more sure about you.”

  Tessa spat on the pavement, then turned her glare on Roach once more. “Your interpretation of everything is incredibly convenient for you, Roach. Why am I not surprised?” She leveled a finger at the alien mech’s head, which involved angling her arm at quite an incline. “You obviously don’t intend to help us in any way. But I know there’s a voice inside of you, telling you that there’s something wrong with the way you see things, and something very right about how I’ve explained them. So, tell me: is that voice loud enough for you to understand you must let us leave this city? Or will you attempt to apprehend us in spite of it?”

  A long moment passed, with Roach and Tessa locked in a silent combat of will.

  At last, Roach said, “Get out of my sight. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  Tessa looked at Lisa, subvocalizing: “Let’s get back to the shuttles. I don’t know how long this offer will last.”

  Nodding, Lisa got on the militia-wide. “Let’s move, everyone. Back to the shuttles, double-time.”

  Chapter 6

  Good and Evil

  With the alien mech safely neutralized, contained, a
nd onboard the Javelin, Bronson was driving his crew hard to complete preparations for their departure from the Belt as soon as possible.

  Nothing was expected of Jake, however. Bronson had permitted him to pay his father a short visit aboard the Whale, to say goodbye.

  Evidently, the visit could have been longer.

  Right now, Jake was sitting in the Starlight Lounge with absolutely nothing to do, and had been for a while.

  He still remembered the day Bronson had first brought him here. Before then, he’d never been anywhere outside the Belt. His main concern had been making enough money for Sue Anne to get the treatment she needed—well, that was still his main concern, actually. But back then, his life had been confined to the Whale and the endless series of comets they’d developed for homesteaders eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and civilization.

  The idea that the inner Steele System constituted “civilization” would have seemed odd to anyone from the Milky Way—Jake knew that. This entire system was basically the frontier, perhaps in the truest sense of the word since ancient Europeans had first colonized North America.

  But to Jake, the inner system did mean civilization, with its cities, its space station, and its ever-expanding industrial base.

  And since walking into the Starlight Lounge to be wowed by Bronson’s promises of mech combat, glory, and riches, he’d seen that civilization for himself.

  Despite it all, he missed the Belt. He missed Hub; the closest thing the Belt had to a city, and also the place Jake was from. Perhaps most of all, he missed life out here with his father, hopping from comet to comet, wishing for something else, without ever realizing he already had everything he needed.

  I was so naive.

  He’d been convinced, that the Ixa could arrive at any time, to finish off the remnants of humanity—or maybe one of the species would show up from the systems that surrounded Steele, which did show signs of occupation by intelligent life. Jake had believed he needed to join the Darkstream military, to use what he’d learned from lucid to navigate training, and to rack up combat experience. To become mighty, so that when aliens did attack, he could act like some big hero.