Meltdown (Mech Wars Book 3)

by Scott Bartlett

  Turning to scan the soldiers that circled them, Ash spotted Commander Janessa Okar, who’d been placed in command of both battalions.

  “Commander, would it be possible to arrange a shuttle to evacuate Mr. Overton?”

  Okar nodded. “Of course.”

  Turning to the three MIMAS pilots that remained under her command, Ash said, “We can cover ground the fastest. Spread out and look for signs of where Roach might be headed next.”

  “What will you do?” Henrietta said, and Ash’s gaze snapped onto the face of Henrietta’s mech. The somewhat impertinent question reminded her of the one she’d asked Bronson just hours ago.

  “I’m going to download satellite photos and study them.”

  Henrietta made a sound that was difficult to decipher, and with that, the other three mechs entered the woods, in three separate directions.

  Nearby, Overton was arguing vehemently with the soldier trying to escort him to the shuttle’s landing zone.

  “I got my shelter,” Overton said, gnarled hands planted firmly on his hips. “It’s got me this far. Plenty of food, and plenty of security!”

  “Sir, please—”

  “I’m not going with you. And that’s that.”

  Chapter 41

  We Stick Together

  An hour of searching by Henrietta, Marco, and Beth brought no results, and finally, Commander Okar ordered one of her battalions to join the search as well.

  Ash hadn’t wanted to suggest that outright, since she still wasn’t sure how their delicate division of power was supposed to work. But she’d certainly hinted at it pretty overtly, and she was glad when Okar finally arrived at the decision.

  Forty more minutes of searching yielded a trail, which Ash suspected had gone pretty cold by now.

  Nevertheless, it was all they had, and they continued along it. It pointed directly at Vanguard, the largest settlement that bordered the Barrens. They’d begun building walls at Vanguard, though construction had halted once it had become known walls were now useless in defending against the Quatro. Either way, the town was well on its way to becoming Eresos’ third true city.

  That was, if everything didn’t fall completely to pieces before then.

  Fifteen minutes into following the trail they’d found, they received an emergency bulletin that Vanguard was indeed under attack by three alien mechs—one biped and two quadrupeds.

  It seemed beyond likely that it was Roach, apparently aligned now with the Quatro mechs.

  The Darkstream force doubled its speed, which came as a tremendous relief to Ash. Under the best of circumstances, the reserve battalions came nowhere near to matching the MIMAS mechs for speed, but at least, now that they’d quickened their pace, they might have beaten a glacier in a race.

  Although, maybe they’d have to increase their speed just a little more to do that.

  At last, they neared Vanguard, and Okar began handing down orders with a crispness and precision that Ash had to admire.

  Partly for defensive reasons, and partly because of the direct access it granted the town to Gatherers laden with resources, Vanguard had been built in a cleft formed by two sheer, towering cliffs. Those cliffs embraced the town like a lover, exposing less than half of her to the cruel world.

  Even the terrain that led to Vanguard was hilly; uneven. That made the town’s location enviable, from a defensive perspective. At least, it should have.

  Despite that the alien mechs were already rampaging through the town’s streets, Okar showed restraint that was as admirable as much as it was likely difficult.

  Before anything else, the commander spread the Darkstream reserve battalions out over the hills, in a wide arc that surrounded the part of the town not covered by the cliffs.

  Only then did she send in Oneiri to draw the enemy out.

  If she was being honest, Ash didn’t like her odds. The MIMAS mechs had already been proven inferior to those of alien make, even though they had succeeded in taking down one of the quads.

  That had required intensive collaboration, and Oneiri’s numbers had been reduced even more since then.

  This looks grim.

  But her training hadn’t taught her to think like that. As a soldier, she was supposed to charge into battle, unhesitating, no matter how daunting the odds. She was supposed to follow orders, even if those orders asked her to face what seemed like near-certain death.

  So that was what she did.

  And it was also what Marco Gonzalez, Henrietta Jin, and Beth Arkanian did. If none of them made it through today, Ash hoped that they would at least be remembered for the way they unflinchingly followed the order that sent them to their deaths.

  As it happened, they did not need to enter Vanguard. Just as they neared the outskirts, Roach emerged from behind one of the outer structures—a warehouse, from the looks of it.

  Flanking him were the two Quatro mechs that Billy Overton had said accompanied him, which reports from Vanguard’s beleaguered garrison had confirmed.

  The trio of alien mechs galloped across the dry terrain, a great cloud of dust rising behind them.

  “Fall back,” Ash said. “Let the reserve battalions soften them up.”

  “You go ahead,” Henrietta said. “I’m staying. I already told you—he’s mine.”

  “Razor, no. You know they’ll run your MIMAS over. Our mechs are most effective when we’re backed up by a variety of units.”

  “You’re right, Steam. That’s why you three should retreat. You can have whatever’s left of Roach when I’m done with him.”

  “Roach is currently backed up by two quite powerful quadruped mechs,” Marco reminded Henrietta, but she didn’t respond.

  “Razor,” Ash said sharply, and Henrietta glanced back at her. Beyond, Roach and his companions were closing the distance. “If you stay, we all stay. You know that. We’re Oneiri Team, and we stick together, damn it.”

  Henrietta turned back to the oncoming enemies. “Tell that to Roach,” she said. “You can do what you want. I’m taking him on.”

  Heaving a sigh, Ash turned to Marco and Beth. “All right, team. Rockets first. Then autocannons. After that, prepare to engage at close quarters.”

  Marco tried one more time: “Henrietta…”

  “Shut up, Marco.”

  With that, Oneiri assumed a single rank and began sending missile after missile at the oncoming mechs, which were now shimmering in the heat.

  Chapter 42

  Her New Army

  “Incredible,” Lisa whispered. “I’m like a general, now, or something.”

  She stood atop a piece of land that swept up out of the Barrens, affording her a view of the tremendous host that passed before her, causing the earth to tremor.

  Her tremendous host.

  Either the other Quatro drifts scattered throughout this region held more closely to the “Quatro way” than did the drift that had captured Lisa and her soldiers, or her words really had been persuasive, even when translated into the Quatro language and repeated.

  Either way, over a thousand of the aliens had responded to the call, pledging to fight Darkstream in order to liberate their brethren.

  More Quatro messengers were remaining behind, to continue searching for and persuading other Quatro drifts. Any they succeeded in recruiting would follow behind the advance force.

  Most of the Quatro had never been in their own species’ military, and so they were content for Lisa to take the command, since she already led the militia from Alex and had racked up a decent amount of combat experience, at this point.

  Not to mention the thorough training she’d received at the hands of the woman whose voice now spoke behind her:

  “You did it,” Tessa said.

  Lisa turned to find the white-haired woman marching up the incline to join her, showing none of her age.

  “We did it,” Lisa said.

  “Either way. We actually have a fighting chance against Darkstream, now, especially after we join with the
Quatro near the space elevator. And we can finally leak the footage of Darkstream’s behavior on Alex. It won’t just sink into obscurity—we actually have the teeth to make them pay for their crimes.”

  Sighing, Lisa nodded slightly. “Maybe. But if Eresos’ robots are turning on us…I don’t know. There are a lot of Amblers on this planet, Tessa, and a lot of Gatherers. If they all hit us together…”

  “Then we’ll do something about it. What have I told you? There’s no use entertaining anxiety about something that hasn’t happened yet. And if it does happen, we’ll handle it.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Lisa turned to leave the rise and rejoin her forces.

  The Eresos Quatro had had their technology stripped away from them by the Meddlers before getting stranded here. But Rug and the others still had their devastating energy weapons, as well as their multipurpose jumpsuits.

  Lisa knew from Alex that her implant interfaced well with the Quatro communicators, and now she used that connection to locate Rug in the vast alien throng.

  “I’m near the front of the great drift, Lisa Sato. Join me and we shall talk.”

  Lisa chuckled at the Quatro’s grandiose way of talking. “Will do, Rug. I’m coming now.”

  Even though the Quatro were consciously checking their speed to make sure the humans could catch up, it still took a brisk jog to overtake them in order to catch up to Rug.

  Lisa had ordered the shuttles they’d stolen from Darkstream to remain where they were until they received further instructions. It wouldn’t do to have them fly into a warzone exposed, and it didn’t serve much to have them leapfrog along with their force, either.

  She might have waited behind with them and hitched a ride once her force drew close enough to the warzone, where the battle between Darkstream and Quatro still raged, at least according to the system net.

  But abandoning her new army immediately after rallying it didn’t feel right. A good leader walked alongside her soldiers and shared in their hardship.

  Tessa had taught her that.

  By the time she reached Rug, the front of the group was just nearing a canyon bracketed by towering cliffs. Lisa thought she remembered seeing it from the shuttle’s cockpit as they flew overhead, during the trip to locate the eastern Quatro drifts. If she was right, the canyon continued for almost two kilometers before the cliffs leveled out into more open terrain—or at least, as open as the Barrens ever got.

  “How is Andy Miller?” the Quatro asked once Lisa arrived.

  “On the mend, from what I hear. He’s up and on his feet—well, foot. Apparently the Quatro we left him and Bob with are looking after him. One of them fashioned him a set of crutches using materials from a Gatherer.” Lisa had gotten in touch to check on Andy the moment she’d returned to the planet’s surface and her implant signal had been restored.

  “These are good tidings,” Rug said.

  As they reached the mouth of the canyon, a rocket left the cliff on their right, sailing through the air to connect with the front ranks of the Quatro army.

  Flame licked the dry air, and an explosion rocked the ground while Lisa’s heart leapt toward her throat. When the smoke and dust cleared, she saw that three Quatro were down, not moving.

  A second rocket came, connecting with another Quatro, this one closer to Lisa and Rug. The missile had been loosed from a hidden cleft somewhere partway up the cliff to the left.

  Squinting through the chaos and into the canyon, Lisa saw a battalion of robots who were just now turning a corner and emerging from the cliffs’ shadows, the sun glinting off their metal surfaces.

  “Fall back!” Lisa screamed, and then she repeated the message over a wide channel.

  But most of her force did not have the means to listen over the wide channel, and as disorder took hold over their ranks, with some Quatro surging forward to meet the attackers while others turned to try to flee through the thick alien horde, Lisa began to panic herself.

  Chapter 43

  Vanguard

  Roach and his new quad friends dodged around the rockets Oneiri fired at them with ease, changing trajectory and speeding up as needed.

  “We need to coordinate,” Ash barked over a team-wide channel, though the urgency in her voice wouldn’t come through over the subvocalization. “Let’s focus on the rightmost Quatro. Spirit, Paste—help me corral it while Razor tries to land a hit.”

  “I told you,” Henrietta shot back. “I’m aiming for Roach.”

  “Damn it, Razor!” Ash yelled, and she didn’t subvocalize this time. “Are you abandoning the entire concept of a military unit operating efficiently together? Have you decided the chain of command doesn’t suit you today? Or are you going to actually act like a soldier?”

  Henrietta glanced sideways at her, and Ash was sure if she could have seen her face, it would have been glaring.

  But when Henrietta turned back toward the enemy, she gave a sullen shrug and ground out, “Fine.”

  Beth landed a rocket to the Quatro mech’s left, forcing it to veer right, and then Marco put one between it and Roach.

  That gave it no path but forward, and Ash decided to take the shot. When the quad sped up again, angling slightly left, Henrietta loosed a missile that scored a direct hit.

  Beth whooped, but stopped when none of the others joined her.

  Any cause for feeling triumphant was short-lived: the explosion dispersed, and the quad emerged from the smoke, virtually unscathed.

  “They’re getting too close for rockets. Engage rotary autocannons and sweep them,” Ash ordered.

  The others complied, peppering the trio of mechs with armor-piercing rounds.

  Even though the high-velocity rounds lent a stutter to the enemy mechs’ step, it did not slow them by much. They barreled closer and closer.

  “All right,” Ash said, her voice tight. “Prepare to extend bayonets.”

  But when Roach and the two quads were about to close with Oneiri, they split apart—Roach and one quad sprinting past to Oneiri’s right while the other quad passed on their left.

  “What the hell?” Henrietta growled.

  Ash saw instantly what the enemy was doing: by charging straight at the Darkstream reserve battalions, they’d made it hazardous for the MIMAS mechs to continue firing at them, for fear of hitting friendlies.

  That meant they only had to contend with the weaker artillery wielded by the soldiers under Janessa Okar’s command.

  Still, there was a lot of that artillery. A tank scored a direct hit on one of the quads, ripping its shoulder half-off. The metal instantly began to knit itself back together, though, and within seconds it had reformed.

  Still, Okar knew what she was doing, and threads of deadly light came from all over the wide arc she’d established—straight at the enemy mechs, whose progress was significantly impeded, now.

  There was no avoiding that massive barrage of ordnance, and the trio of mechs could only continue their forward surge.

  For a moment—as hundreds of metal fragments were shot off the alien mechs’ sides and heavy ordnance continued to hammer their fronts, which had to be doing major damage—Ash dared to hope.

  Were the mechs about to go down without inflicting any casualties on Darkstream’s forces?

  But then Roach and the quads reached the Darkstream ranks.

  Immediately, most of the shooting dropped off, to avoid friendly fire. The soldiers around the mechs tried to pull away from them to continue shooting, but clearly Roach and the Quatro now considered it their turn.

  They wouldn’t let the Darkstream soldiers get away, keeping close to them instead.

  The Quatro mechs charged through the ranks, impaling infantry on twin lances that sprouted downward from their shoulders while firing from batteries of guns that projected from their flanks.

  A broadside barrage from a ground unit. Ash shook her head in wonderment.

  For his part, Gabe elected to simply lay about the enemy troops with arms that had become m
assive broadswords. Then, without warning, he charged straight at a tank, and the soldiers in his path scurried to get out of his way.

  Leaping high into the air—Ash took the opportunity to pelt Roach with her autocannons, but to little effect—Roach descended to pierce the tank with both blades.

  He must have done something else to the tank, then, because it exploded beneath him. Moments later, Roach emerged from the conflagration to continue his rampage.

  “What do we do now?” Beth said, her voice small.

  “I don’t know,” Marco answered. “But I suspect it’ll probably have something to do with dealing with that.”

  Ash glanced toward Marco to see him pointing at the sky. She followed the gesture with her eyes.

  Far above Eresos, hundreds of streaks of fire were hurtling toward the planet’s surface. They were visible even in broad daylight.

  “What is that?” Henrietta said.

  “It’s something entering the atmosphere,” Ash said, remembering the way the Quatro mechs had first arrived on Eresos. “Many somethings, from the looks of it. And I doubt we’re going to welcome our new visitors.”

  Chapter 44

  Engage Together

  “Captain,” Ash said as Bronson answered her call, appearing on the ground before him. “Do you know anything about those meteorites that look like they’re hurtling straight for us?”

  Bronson rubbed his palms against both stubbled cheeks. “Ah. They showed up, then, did they?”

  “Huh? What do you mean, ‘they?’ What are they?”

  The captain sniffed. “I’ve been keeping the Javelin near the space elevator, hoping to intercept them there. I figured the elevator would be their first target…I knew they couldn’t possibly move fast enough to race a destroyer accelerating at full power, but I never expected them to strike Vanguard…” The man cleared his throat.

  “Would you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about, sir?”