Mech

by Isaac Hooke

  The team ducked behind whatever cover was available to them, moving between debris, parked vehicles, benches, and so forth.

  Ahead, those Draactals that spilled onto the current street milled about, their clattering mandibles forming a continuous background susurration, like white noise.

  Finally, about thirty meters from the closest aliens, Rade felt the team was close enough. He raised a fist when they ducked behind a police flyer that had crashed into the sidewalk.

  “Cyclone, Rex,” Rade sent. “Good luck.”

  The pair nodded behind their faceplates, and continued forward.

  Tahoe and Rex carefully approached the entrance, using a line of parked vehicles for cover. The vehicles abruptly ended ten meters from the steps leading up to the building. There was a piece of debris close to the base of the steps, a big concrete block that had probably been shot off the building. It was the only cover between their current position and the entrance.

  Rex went first, darting out to the debris at a crouch, and ducking behind it. He placed a repeater there, and then peered past the far edge, scanning the alien line, and when he confirmed that the creatures hadn’t spotted him, he raced up the stairs three steps at a time. He reached the building entrance—the glass door was shattered—and dove inside.

  “Clear!” Rex sent. “Whenever you’re ready, Cyclone.”

  Tahoe seemed to hesitate. But then he left his cover and darted for the debris fragment. He dove behind it, but then one of the aliens howled.

  “Shit,” Tahoe said. “I think they saw me.”

  Several aliens broke away from the milling throng and pounced toward his position; their ax-like feet chopped up the asphalt menacingly.

  Rex suddenly appeared in the entrance. He shouted, waving his arms, and the aliens immediately swerved from the debris block that shielded Tahoe. They raced up the steps, but Rex had already vanished inside.

  Rade was about to give the order to open fire, to draw the enemy away. But when he glanced at Bender, his gaze alighted on the RPG launcher his friend carried.

  “Bender, a distraction, please,” Rade said.

  Bender looked at him, and saw that Rade was gazing at the RPG. Bender smirked.

  He swerved between the debris in the roadway, until he was well away from the team, and then fired the RPG toward the far side of the street. It struck the building on the opposite corner, breaking away a big fragment that promptly crashed to the ground.

  A big group of Draactals rushed toward the broken fragment, while another group broke away toward Bender’s position. They seemed to have forgotten about Rex, because soon the entrance was free of aliens once more.

  Rade glanced at his overhead map. Dodging from cover to cover, Bender had relocated further from the aliens, but was unable to return to the others, cut off, for now.

  “Snakeoil, stay here and wait for Bender,” Rade said.

  Snakeoil nodded, and squeezed underneath the vehicle as far as was possible in his jumpsuit.

  Meanwhile, Rade moved forward.

  When Tahoe saw him coming, he immediately left cover and hurried up the stairs to the entrance.

  “Clear!” Tahoe sent.

  Rade paused for only a moment when he reached the debris fragment, and then raced up the stairs to join Tahoe inside.

  They stood in a concourse-like environment. There were many shops, sealed by security grills, but no sign of the aliens that had chased Rex. Nor of Rex himself—he was out of comm range.

  “Looks like the aliens saw you,” Snakeoil sent. “You got more coming in!”

  “Go!” Rade told Tahoe.

  The pair rushed forward, and ducked behind an escalator. A moment later the sound of those sharp alien feet crunching into the floor filled the air. Several aliens tore past, splitting up. From the sound of it, some were clambering the escalator.

  Rade waited until he could barely hear the creatures, and then peered out to survey the concourse.

  “Clear,” Rade said. “For now. Snakeoil, how’s it look outside?”

  “Looks like that’s it, for now,” Snakeoil said. His voice was distorting, and Rade knew that when he and Tahoe proceeded deeper, they’d be out of range. “Bender is slowly making his way back toward my position. The Draactals are still looking for him, but they’re well away from him.”

  “All right,” Rade said. “We’ll be back shortly.”

  “I can do this alone,” Tahoe said.

  Rade shook his head. “Buddy system.”

  The pair left cover, and used the map to make their way toward the stairwell that led to the basement. The door had been crumpled off its hinges.

  They picked their way across it. From the distant howling Rade heard coming from below, he knew at least a few aliens awaited. Rade spotted a repeater attached to the wall, and knew Rex had come this way.

  Rade and Tahoe took the flight to the basement—the door had also been torn off its frame—and then continued deeper, passing another repeater, until they reached the parking garage one floor down. That door was also crumpled, and lying on the concrete beyond. The howls were loud from within.

  Rade and Tahoe carefully approached the entrance. Rade peered past the left side at a crouch, while Tahoe remained high, and peered past the right.

  Rade spotted a Draactal as it raced behind a group of pillars, crunching the cars beneath it.

  Rex’s signal showed up. He was on the far corner of the parking garage. The aliens he had spotted also appeared, showing up as red dots on the map. Dots that were closing on his position as they methodically hunted him down.

  “Rex, get out of there,” Rade said.

  “They’ve got me cornered, Chief,” Rex said. “I’ve planted most of the demo blocks. I hope it’s enough. I’m marking off their positions, so you don’t repeat my work.”

  Rade received the tracking data, and the marked pillars appeared on his map.

  “I’ve used up all my grenades, so I’m going to detonate the remaining explosives,” Rex continued. “Take down as many of these fuckers as I can.”

  The red dots were quickly closing on his position.

  “Rex, don’t,” Rade said. “We’re coming for you. We’re almost there.”

  He nodded at Tahoe, and the pair entered the parking garage.

  “Do you remember the story I told you?” Rex asked. “About the gator I fought off when it tried to drag my older brother into the swamp? How I beat the damn thing away with a lone stick?”

  “I remember, brother,” Rade said. “Wait for us.”

  “It’s too late,” Rex said. “I’m using the only stick I have left to keep these gators from you. Tell my wife and daughter I love them.”

  “Rex—” Rade began.

  But a massive explosion came, ripping through a quarter of the parking garage. Rade and Tahoe ducked as the shockwave passed them by.

  Rex’s signal went blank.

  “No,” Rade said.

  “We have to move quickly,” Tahoe said. “The Draactals upstairs will have heard the commotion. I have to place the remaining charges.”

  “Do it,” Rade said absently. He forced himself to concentrate. Forced himself to follow Tahoe and protect his brother.

  Lost another under my command. A man with a wife and daughter… a man who was my friend. And my brother.

  Rade blinked rapidly, and ground his teeth.

  The aliens would pay.

  Tahoe moved from pillar to pillar, placing charges on either side of those that Rex hadn’t reached. Alien body parts littered the area, but there was no sign of Rex’s body at the heart of the blast crater.

  As Tahoe had predicted, Draactals poured inside via the stairwell entrance. Rade and his friend moved stealthily between the remaining pillars as the aliens fanned out. As much as Rade wanted to open fire at the bastards, he’d only reveal his position. Tahoe needed to place the rest of the demolition blocks.

  “That’s the last of them,” Tahoe said.

  Rade n
odded, and the pair doubled-back, making their way toward the entrance. They hid behind different pillars and parked vehicles as Draactals moved past, those ax-like feet clawing into the concrete floor.

  They managed to reach the entrance area without being discovered. Peering past the final pillar between himself and the door, Rade spotted a pair of aliens watching the stairwell opening.

  “They’re getting smart,” Tahoe sent.

  “I get the one on the left,” Rade said. “You get the right.”

  Rade ripped a grenade free from his harness and threw it at the closest alien. Tahoe did the same.

  Then they ducked behind the pillar once more.

  As soon as the two explosions detonated, the pair leaned past their cover and targeted the aliens. The explosions had carved huge chunks out of the carapaces of both creatures, but otherwise they were still on their feet.

  Rade and Tahoe aimed at the vulnerable areas underneath the third tentacles on the left flanks. They fired their laser rifles almost in unison, and the impacts caused the injured creatures to go into a frenzy. The Draactals blindly lashed out at the empty air, slowly moving away from the entrance.

  Meanwhile, the other Draactals in the parking garage were rapidly racing across the concrete to return.

  Rade and Tahoe released a few more shots, further spurring on the wounded creatures, and as soon as Rade judged the aliens well enough away from the opening, he ordered: “Go!”

  Rade and Tahoe leaped from cover and dodged past the aliens. They dove into the stairwell and raced upstairs.

  “There will probably be more of them coming,” Tahoe said. “Drawn by those grenades.”

  Rade nodded. He hoped so.

  More of them to kill.

  Rade and Tahoe passed the basement entrance, slowing down to pie the opening along the way. They proceeded up the next flight, but as they neared the opening, Rade spotted several Draactals rushing the stairwell.

  “Next floor!” Rade said. He tossed a grenade, and hurried up the stairs with Tahoe. The explosion detonated below.

  They reached the second-floor entrance, and Tahoe rushed through the open door, which had also been torn off its hinges. Rade followed just behind. Heading north, they kept close to the guardrail to their left, which overlooked the concourse below. Security grills sealed off different stores and restaurants to their right.

  The Draactals, howling, flowed from the stairwell and onto the second floor. Rade spun around to throw another grenade. The device landed squarely between the mandibles of the closest alien, and blew up its head.

  Rade smiled grimly.

  The pursuing aliens merely crawled over the carapace of their fallen brethren.

  Ahead, a small bridge led west across the concourse, diverging from the main path that continued alongside the shops to the north.

  “Keep going!” Rade said. “I’ll try to draw some of them away!”

  “We have to keep together!” Tahoe said.

  But Rade had already turned onto the bridge. Five of the Draactals swerved to follow him, while only two continued toward Tahoe.

  Good enough.

  Ahead, three more Draactals were approaching from the south, on the opposite side of the second floor, intending to cut him off before he could reach the far side of the bridge. Rade upped his servomotor output, but he could already tell he wasn’t going to make it.

  Rade spotted some kind of a kiosk below. It was flat-roofed, painted bright blue, and located about halfway between the bridge and the ground. If it could hold his weight…

  He leaped over the guardrail and landed on the roof of the kiosk. It held his weight. He slid onto a sloping section on the side of that roof, and landed on the ground.

  The Draactals pursued behind him, smashing into the rooftop as they leaped down in turn, their impacts crushing the kiosk a little bit more each time.

  Rade threw his last grenade, but the aliens swerved around it so that when it detonated it caused no damage.

  More Draactals were rushing toward his position from the south, blocking any retreat that way. The only exit was just ahead, to the west, a wide hallway that opened onto the north-south street between the skyscrapers. That street would be full of aliens, but Rade had no other choice at this point.

  He rushed into the hallway, and toward the street in question. He couldn’t spot any aliens, and felt a moment of hope.

  But as he crashed through the broken panes in the door frames, he understood why he hadn’t seen any of the Draactals. It was because the entrance was elevated. And stairs led down to the street, which were filled to the brim with the aliens from north to south.

  Several mandibled heads pivoted to look up at him from below.

  Behind him, the other aliens approaching from within the building howled madly in anticipation of the kill.

  32

  Rade had nowhere to run.

  He attempted to access the remote detonation interfaces for the demolition blocks. Hopefully the repeaters were strong enough to reach his current location…

  They were. A series of entries, with names like RDB-001A, RDB-001B, etc., filled the left side of his HUD. RDB stood for remote demolition block.

  He highlighted them all, knowing that he was in the path of the building behind him, but it didn’t matter anymore. There was no escape anyway. He might as well go out with a bang, just as Rex had.

  I’ll be joining you soon, my brother.

  But before he could engage the detonators, a large form dropped down beside him. Startled, he aimed his laser rifle up at it.

  It was a Brigand mech. His HUD identified it, placing four letters above its name, forming a word that was precious to him.

  Taya.

  He was so happy to see her. She had survived. She was missing her right arm, and her ballistic shield seemed jammed in place on the left hand, judging from the way the connectors were crumpled where they joined her hand. Her armor was also scratched all over.

  But she lived.

  “My cockpit hatch won’t open,” she said, her avatar appearing in the lower right of his HUD as she knelt. “You’ll have to clamber aboard my passenger seat.”

  Rade leaped onto the rungs of her left leg and pulled himself into the seat. “The others?”

  Via her avatar, she shook her head. “I’m the only mech that made it.”

  An alien burst through the building entrance behind him, and Rade fired at it with his laser rifle. He struck the vulnerable area beneath the third tentacle, and the alien reared, turning around to crawl over the next Draactal behind it.

  Meanwhile on the other side, the aliens from the street swarmed up the steps toward Taya. She raced down the stairs to meet them, moving with a pronounced limp.

  “How did you make it?” he asked. “What happened?”

  “I siphoned as much jumpjet fuel as I could from four of the other downed mechs, and then I fought my way to the opening in the building, and leaped out.” She was bashing away aliens with her ballistic shield, clearing a path through them. “I had enough fuel to reach the closest building, and after I landed, I slowly made my way down. I spotted a disturbance below, and saw you and Cyclone enter the building. I made my way here as fast as I could. It was hard clambering across the building with this shield stuck in my hands. But I made it. And then, when I saw you emerge not far from my position, I knew it was time for me to let go of the exterior.”

  When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she turned south toward the intersection where Rade had left Snakeoil and Bender. The path was filled to the brim with aliens.

  “I knew you’d survive,” he said. “I knew it!”

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” she said. Her avatar smiled sweetly on his HUD.

  Taya bashed her way through the aliens, keeping the building to her left so that she only had to face attacks from the front and side. Meanwhile Rade fired at any aliens that came at her from behind. He targeted their vulnerable points, and sometimes hit, sometimes missed.
In the latter cases, Taya had to spin around to knock the encroaching aliens away.

  But she was still taking damage. Before she could smash them aside, mandibles often punctured her armor, or those ax-like feet cut fresh gashes in her ballistic shield. There were just too many of them. Even so, she was always conscious of Rade’s well-being, and as the successive aliens attacked, she swiveled her body so that the passenger seat was out of their reach.

  At one point she tried to climb the building, but the aliens kept pulling her down, so she quickly gave up and continued.

  A pair of Nemesis spheres floated around the bend ahead, flying past the intersection, and heading straight for Taya.

  “Oh shit,” Rade said.

  But then two rockets launched from the fourth-floor window of a building across the street, and directly ahead.

  Bender.

  Those rockets slammed into the spheres, and they partially exploded. Their wreckages crashed into the Draactals below, killing three or four of them.

  “Get ready,” Taya sent. “Things are going to get hectic.”

  Taya reached the intersection, and the leftmost wall of the building fell away. She was surrounded on all sides by the aliens.

  “There’s too many of them overflowing onto the street to the left,” she said. “I can’t take that route. I’m going to bring you to the building just ahead, where those rockets came from, instead.”

  Rade gazed to the left, and realized there were indeed far more aliens down that way, versus if she crossed directly to the building she mentioned.

  “It’s better if you go left,” Rade said. “I’ve got this entire area rigged with demo blocks. We’re in the path of two buildings at the moment, but if you turn left, you’ll be in the clear after fifty meters.”

  “Whereas its only twenty meters to the building ahead,” she said. “I think that’s the better choice.”

  He ran a quick calculation. “The debris from the detonations will reach the base of the building, and probably up to the first or second floors. If you really want to go that way, you’ll have to climb the wall when we get there.”