The Complete Void Wraith Saga

by Chris Fox

  “They probably use energy for the same reasons we do. We use the Helios Gates to travel, and it stands to reason they have a similar method. We may be looking at whatever they use to travel between star systems.” Fizgig returned to her chair, settling on the cushions again. “Specialist Tag, bring up a tactical report for the surface. Are the teams in position yet?”

  “Yes, sir, they’ve begun advancing toward the target.” The specialist, a white-furred Tigris who’d yet to adopt a pride, tapped away at his keyboard. The view screen showed the surface. Twelve mechs trotted through the dust, moving in double file.

  If their structures had the same uses as those of the Tigris, it looked like they were headed toward some kind of coliseum—a massive domed structure with many entrances and exits. That would make it a nightmare to defend. Why choose such a location?

  Fizgig’s tail swished back and forth behind her, mirroring her mood.

  “Put me through to Major Reval. Audio only,” she ordered.

  “You’re on, sir,” Juliard replied.

  “Reval, this is Fizgig. I see twelve mechs, not sixteen. Where’s the last quarter of your forces?”

  “You said I had operational authority, Admiral. Is this really the time to be questioning my deployment tactics?”

  Fizgig bristled inwardly, but forced her tail to stillness. “You do have authority, but I want to make sure this isn’t part of your petty human politics. I know you dislike Nolan.”

  Juliard and Tag shared a significant glance. Fizgig pretended she didn’t see it.

  “I thought you had more respect for me, Admiral. My personal feelings do not ever influence the decisions I make during an op. I ordered Nolan to stay behind and secure the landing site, because we need to ensure we have a way out of here.” Reval’s voice was clotted with anger. “Since you’ve made it personal, sir, are you sure you’re not just being overprotective of your favorite student?”

  “I am old, Major, but I am still Tigris,” Fizgig said, matter-of-factly. “If you speak to me in such a manner again, I will kill you. You know enough of my history to know that’s not an idle boast. I need skilled officers, Reval, and you are that. But I will not have insubordination infesting my ranks. The 1st Fleet has a sterling reputation—Earth’s finest, is that not what you call yourselves?”

  “You know it is.”

  “Then act like it,” Fizgig snapped. “Carry out your mission. I will be watching.”

  “Acknowledged. Reval out.”

  The connection went dead, but the view screen continued to show the mechs. They’d started fanning out and were now covering the southern side of the coliseum. Three transports pulled up behind them, and three dozen marines spread out between the mechs. A single squad broke from their ranks, moving to one of the doors. They slipped inside, while the rest of the company waited.

  Nearly a minute later, the squad still hadn’t emerged. Four mechs raised their cannons, focusing on the coliseum wall. They made a mech-sized breach, and the war machines began moving into the structure.

  “Move to the pilot’s view,” Fizgig ordered. It would annoy Reval even further, but so long as she didn’t interfere he’d have nothing to gripe about. She needed to learn everything about her opponent, as soon as that information was available.

  The view screen shifted, now showing the perspective of the lead mech. The view bobbed up and down as it moved down a hallway just barely big enough to accommodate its bulk. It paused next to a wall it couldn’t pass, then opened up with a full barrage from its particle cannon. The wall melted to slag, exposing the inside of the coliseum.

  It was entirely familiar, exactly what she’d have expected on a Tigris or human world. Rows of seats stretched all the way to the top, and the middle was a rusty-red field. In the center of that field, a fortification had been erected—a crudely designed cube with slits that could be fired through.

  The cube was easily as tall as one of the mechs, and the defenders were large enough to fire through. That meant whatever they were fighting was as large or larger than their own mechanized units.

  The camera shifted violently as the mech carrying it was knocked to the ground in a massive explosion. Its metallic arm went sailing past, then the camera went dark.

  The view returned a moment later, this time showing the perspective of a mech waiting outside. Explosions came from within the coliseum, but it wasn’t yet clear who was fighting.

  “Admiral Fizgig, this is Major Reval. We’ve confirmed that this was indeed an ambush. The transponders are coming from a fortified position, but I doubt our men are inside. I’m confident we can get the upper hand here. Request instructions.”

  “Fall back to the ships, Major. I suspect this is merely the prelude to the true ambush.” Fizgig dug her claws into a cushion, shredding it, then turned to Juliard. “Order all vessels to activate cloaking devices and move to the planet’s nadir. Inform the fleet to ready for battle.”

  4

  Assault

  Red sand whirled and eddied around the mech’s canopy, hiding everything except for the looming shadows of the towering buildings. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the storm died. The wind fell away, and the sand settled.

  The sky brightened, giving Nolan his first real look at the city around him. It suddenly made sense that the spires all had that blasted look; they’d been exposed to these winds for centuries, slowly carving them away. It must have been centuries since this place had been populated by the people who’d built them to begin with.

  “Captain.” Edwards’s voice came over the comm. “I’m getting really antsy.”

  “Did you see something, Private?” Nolan checked his gauges, looking for anything that might suggest they were under attack.

  “Negative, sir.” Edwards didn’t sound convinced, and Nolan had learned to trust the grunt’s hunches.

  Lena spoke up. “I might have something, Captain. There’s seismic activity coming from one of those mounds—wait, make that two of the mounds. Something is definitely happening inside.”

  Nolan faced his mech toward the coliseum, but there was too much obscuring his vision. He couldn’t see the building, or any of Alpha Company.

  Hannan’s voice broke over the com, sounding cool but concerned. “Sir, I think I just saw an explosion. There’s fighting outside the coliseum—these big, red, armored, ape-looking things. Looks like we’re getting it from two sides.”

  Nolan tapped a button inside his glove. “Major Reval, sir, this is Captain Nolan. Please respond.” He waited a precise three seconds, then repeated the message. Nothing. “Lena, do you have a way to detect jamming?”

  A little window popped up on his screen, showing the Tigris. “You think they have a way to block quantum entanglement?” She licked her chops, exposing two-inch fangs. “So far as we know, that’s impossible.”

  “Yeah, so far as we know—but we aren’t getting a response from Reval, and I don’t want to risk giving away the fleet’s position by radioing them.”

  “What do you want to do, sir?” Hannan asked.

  “Let’s move out. We’re going to go help with those ape things. Annie, I want you to stay back and watch the ships. If anyone approaches, call it in and then evac. Is that clear?”

  “If I see anyone, I squawk about it, then run,” Annie drawled back. “That about the size of it?”

  “That’s the size of it. Hannan, Edwards, form up on me. Let’s see if we can flank these things.”

  Nolan started his mech into a lumbering run, its giant strides leaving huge furrows in the freshly packed rust. He darted through a hollowed-out building into a mostly intact alleyway next to a skyscraper that had kept most of its foundation.

  Edwards fell in behind him, and Nolan spotted Hannan not much farther back. They moved quickly. Efficiently.

  Forty seconds later, Nolan came around the corner of an ancient warehouse, right into the middle of a firefight. It was taking place a block up the street—half a dozen armored figure
s engaging Reval’s company.

  They were, as Hannan had said, wearing scarlet armor, and their long arms and thick bodies did make them resemble gorillas. Each set of armor was a little different and clearly crafted for a specific owner. One had stylized golden wings painted across the chest. Another had five black lines on one forearm, and three on another.

  They seemed to use a mix of melee and ranged weapons, all with impressive ferocity. They were a little taller than his mech, but not much. Nolan, already drawing a bead on his chosen target, hoped that put them on about even footing.

  “We start on the left flank. Edwards, take the first one. Hannan, the second. I’ll axe the third. Use restrained volleys.”

  He thumbed the trigger, and his particle cannon kicked backward. A stream of plasma pulses shot into his opponent’s back, knocking the ape into a waist-high pile of rust. Nolan squeezed the trigger a second time, hitting the exact same spot. The armor heated, then melted.

  The armored gorilla thing started climbing to its feet, so Nolan shot it again—this time in the faceplate. The first pulse only knocked it back a step, but the second and third melted the faceplate. The thing collapsed, and didn’t rise.

  “Aim for the faces, people!” Nolan spared a moment to see how his squad was doing. Both Hannan and Edwards had downed their targets, and they were already walking up the line to the next targets.

  Nolan joined in, and they cut down a trio of apes.

  “Looks like they’re aware of us. Fall back to cover. Now.” Nolan turned and sprinted, sliding behind a worn wall that was all that remained of the building.

  Hannan made it into cover, but three of the apes took aim at Edwards with long, black rifles. They fired red blasts of unfamiliar energy. The first missed, but the second and third hit Edwards in the back. He was knocked forward, a shower of sparks arcing from his back.

  He stumbled to his feet and kept running, then juked left into an alleyway to break line of sight. “That was close,” he reported over the comm. “I took some damage.”

  “Hang in there, Private. Sit tight, and we’ll get you some cover fire.” Nolan leaned from behind a wall and fired a quick flurry of shots. Two apes ducked behind cover, but not before he tagged one of them in the arm. “Hannan, can you get me a count on these things?”

  “I count eight survivors, sir.” Hannan was panting, and sounded distracted. “We chewed ’em up pretty bad, but there’s still a lot of ’em.”

  “All we have to do is hold them in place,” Nolan replied grimly. “If I’m right about Alpha’s response times, we’re about to get reinforcements.”

  As if on queue, the stutter of multiple plasma cannons came from farther up the thoroughfare. Reval’s company had broken through the enemy lines, and were gunning down apes.

  “All right, people, get on them.” Nolan leaned the mech from cover again, stitching a line of shots just above an ape’s head. The ape turned in his direction, but Nolan fired again. This time he caught the ape in the chest, and it tumbled out of sight.

  A stream of mechs trotted down the road in a wedge formation, Reval’s B-class mech in the lead. The booster mech was taller and lighter than a standard Linebacker class, and had a bulky rocket pack strapped to the back. That and the foot thrusters allowed the B-class to stay airborne for short periods of time, or to serve as a fully mobile fighter in a vacuum.

  “Captain Nolan, you’ve disobeyed a direct order,” Reval snapped. “You were to guard the ships, but you deserted your post. Explain yourself.”

  Nolan was already tired of Reval’s self-righteous attitude. “Sir, the enemy was jamming us so I couldn’t request permission. Lieutenant Hannan saw your company engaged with unknown hostiles, and when we didn’t hear back we came running. Respectfully, sir, we just saved your asses.”

  “Yes, but at what cost? The ships are unprotected. Unless you left a rearguard? I don’t see that moonshine-swilling mongrel you keep around.”

  “I left Annie behind to alert us if they make an attack on the ships. We can get there quickly if we move now.”

  “Let’s get to it—but remember, son, this isn’t over. I’m going to have you officially reprimanded when the dust settles. You’re an asset, but you’re too full of yourself, too sure you always know what’s best. That kind of attitude can get men killed. You need to be taken down a peg or three, to learn to follow the damned orders you’re given, even if you don’t understand the reasons for them.”

  Nolan endured the tirade, refusing to get into an argument. He’d dealt with this attitude often since the Coalition had formed the expeditionary fleets, though Reval was a lot more vocal about his problems than most of the other officers Nolan dealt with.

  Frantic beeping came from Nolan’s screen. The seismic activity in the two mounds had increased by 200%. The ground began to shake, and it took everything Nolan had to keep the mech’s balance. The buildings around them heaved and swayed, and some of the older ones fell with ponderous crashes. They sent up enormous whirls of rust, and Nolan could hear a faint scream from a marine who’d been pinned under a fractured pylon. Nolan turned his mech toward the closest mound, trying to figure out what was causing the shaking.

  A metallic claw the size of an aircraft carrier punched through the rusted metal, knocking chunks of metal away from the mound.

  The claw punched through again, this time followed by a bizarre reptilian creature. The thing had to be two or three thousand meters tall, and its mouth could have swallowed Reval’s cruiser without needing to chew. Much of its body had been replaced with cybernetics. One arm ended in a three-pronged claw, and the other held a cannon of truly terrifying size. It was bigger than anything Nolan had seen on a Primo ship, maybe even bigger than the Forge’s main cannon.

  The mountain-sized creature paused, turning its green-scaled head toward the sky. It bellowed, and the resulting wave of sound rolled over the city. Smaller and weaker spires crumbled to dust, destroyed by the magnitude of the sound that had come out of the creature.

  “Get back to the ships,” Reval roared over the comm.

  “You heard the man,” Nolan said to his squad. He coaxed the mech into motion, running like hell.

  5

  Planetstrider

  “Annie, give me a sitrep.” Nolan guided his mech back the way they’d come, massive strides eating up the distance to the rust-covered field where they’d parked the ships.

  “There’s a mountain-sized dinosaur-looking thing that looks a tad pissed off. It’s kinda eyeing the ships like it don’t like ’em too much.” Annie’s voice quavered. “Sir, if you can get back here quickly I’d appreciate it.”

  Nolan glanced out the viewport. The monstrosity took a step toward them, triggering another quake. Nolan stumbled to one knee, catching the mech against a discarded freighter wing. A wave of rusty wind blasted over them, strong enough to rock the mech back a step.

  “Captain, there’s another one of those things,” Hannan called over the comm. “Eight o’clock, sir.”

  “Acknowledged, Lieutenant.” Nolan opened a private channel to Reval. “Major, we’ve sighted a second bogey. Since they’re coming from these mounds, I suspect they’ve got a third, too. Annie also spotted another wave of those armored gorillas.”

  “Thanks for the information, Captain,” Reval shot back. “Now get your ass back to the ships.”

  Alpha Company fanned out behind them, every mech sprinting for all it was worth. Nolan jumped over a low wall, landing in a puff of rust. He could see the landing zone now. Behind it towered the monstrosity. The cannon was ponderously slow, but it had finally swung around into position.

  “Annie, get out of there. Get out, now,” he roared, pouring on the speed. The engine roared beneath him, filling the cockpit with a wave of heat. Nolan raced ahead of the other mechs, trying to reach Annie.

  A hellish glow came from the cannon, and a high-pitched whine set Nolan’s teeth on edge. The glow built into scarlet brilliance, discharging in a beam of di
vine fury. It scorched the earth, obliterating everything it touched. Buildings, people, vehicles, and piles of rust were reduced to a glassy black smudge.

  The beam washed over the landing zone, wider than a city block. The ships it touched directly were reduced to atoms, and everything else was flung away in a massive explosion. Reval’s cruiser and the corvettes flanking it simply ceased to exist.

  “Annie, no!” Nolan circled the destruction, looking for any sign of her mech among the flaming wreckage. There was nothing.

  “Alpha Company, form up.” Reval ordered. “We’ve got hostiles advancing. Use the buildings as visual cover from that monster. At least we can fight the little ones. Captain Nolan, looks like parking off by yourself wasn’t such a bad plan after all.”

  “What do you want me to do, sir?” Nolan forced the words past the numbness. He refused to accept that she was dead.

  “Take the Peregrine back to the fleet. I’m already uploading all the footage from Alpha Company.”

  “Yes, sir.” Nolan switched to squad only. “You heard the man. Let’s get moving. Now people.”

  “What about Annie?” Edwards choked out. “She might still be alive.”

  “We don’t have time. Reval will have to help her.” Nolan hated himself, but he compartmentalized his emotions. There’d be a price, but he could pay that if they survived.

  Shots rang out behind them as Alpha Company moved to intercept the wave of apes. At least that monster hadn’t fired again. The Peregrine was parked out of sight, so it was possible they hadn’t detected her. He hoped so anyway.

  They sprinted down an alleyway, sparks shooting from the walls as Nolan’s mech scraped the narrowest parts. Then they emerged into the empty lot where the Peregrine waited. She was covered in the shadow of a mostly intact spire, powered down.