Infliction (Mech Wars Book 4)

by Scott Bartlett

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the other one? Arkanian? Is she ready?”

  “I believe so, Captain.”

  Black nodded again, then ran a hand across his cheek, which had sprouted some stubble. He didn’t like that he’d grown lax with his personal grooming. It was sloppy, and it indicated to his soldiers that the coming engagement was affecting him.

  “I’ve had my doubts about our mutual employer, too, you know,” Black said after yet another pause. “Deep-seated doubts. I don’t think Darkstream is a noble company. I don’t even think they act responsibly, most of the time. But the difference between your friends and I is that I know what it is to follow orders. What is to be a loyal soldier. Even though I work for a corporation, that doesn’t change what it means to be a soldier. Following orders is central to the spirit of that.”

  Black paused a moment to let his words sink in. It occurred to him that everything he’d said so far formed a well-worn argument for obeying one’s superiors. And it wasn’t even the extent of what he believed. So he dug deeper.

  “The military is the last line of defense against chaos, Jin. That was true in the Milky Way, and it’s especially true in the Steele System. Though the Darkstream military is not a tool that is used universally for good, if it falls apart, we’re all doomed. Your friends haven’t caught on to it yet, but they’re the ones assaulting the security of all who live here—not us. Are you following me?”

  Jin cleared her throat. “What if a soldier is given orders that should not be followed, sir?”

  Black narrowed his eyes, studying Jin’s neutral expression. “I need perfect compliance from you tonight, Jin. You’ve already chosen your path. Do you really plan to stray from it now?”

  “No, sir.”

  The thunder of explosive ordnance rocked the tower once again.

  “It’s time for you to suit up,” he said, taking a moment to relish how level his voice was.

  “It’s about damned time.” Jin spun on her heel without waiting to be dismissed, slamming the access panel near the door with her palm, and marching out when it rose to let her pass.

  She’ll go to her death as ordered, but she’ll do it on her own terms. Despite the speech he’d given, Black had to admit he admired that.

  Chapter 14

  It's Time

  As Jake and pretty much everyone else had pointed out repeatedly, Lisa had marshaled this army, and she’d led it to victory once already. So it was only right that she retain command.

  Maybe it feels right to them. All I want to do is vomit.

  Mortar fire fell all around her, lighting up the dark and sending tremors through the ground. She tried to ignore the chaos and focus on the task at hand: commanding one of the largest armies Eresos had ever known.

  An honor guard of Quatro surrounded her command post, behind the second-largest hill on the field of battle. She figured opting for the increased protection of the largest hill would have been too obvious, though she had ordered Quatro to come and go from behind it, as though receiving and carrying out orders. It even seemed to be working—enemy mortar fire was focused disproportionately on the larger rise.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, since there was quite a lot of enemy mortar fire, in addition to a torrent of sniper fire and the occasional rocket. Black had clearly drilled into his men and women the importance of taking out Lisa’s heavy artillery as quickly as possible, and Darkstream had obviously learned some valuable lessons from the previous Quatro attacks on Ingress and Plenitude.

  Lisa had decided to forego tunneling into Ingress. Black would have already filled in the tunnel the quads had made, through which Rug’s mate had gained entry to sew chaos in the city’s streets. Lisa’s own Quatro would have had to start digging anew, and she doubted there was enough time for that.

  Luckily, her forces had access to quite a bit of artillery, most of it either taken from Darkstream patrols or raided from company outposts. As fierce a resistance as the city’s defenders were putting up, they couldn’t compensate for the numbers and might of the Quatro, or the fact that the walls were ultimately built to withstand only unarmed Quatro.

  “Lisa,” Tessa subvocalized over an encrypted channel. “We have visitors.”

  Lisa had put Tessa in charge of keeping an eye on their force’s rear and flanks, as a precaution in case Darkstream had risked positioning a force out in the countryside to take them from behind.

  “Are they hostile?” Lisa subvocalized.

  “Negative. It’s another Quatro drift—thirty or so, half of them armed, including three more rocket launchers.”

  “Excellent.” During the march on Ingress, she’d sent Quatro runners in every direction, in a last-minute attempt to recruit even more soldiers for the coming battle. It seemed her efforts were paying off. Even thirty unarmed Quatro would have been the equivalent of dozens of human soldiers. Armed, they would prove invaluable.

  “Get them up to speed as fast as you can and deploy them wherever you think they’re needed most,” Lisa said.

  “Will do. Notaras out.”

  That taken care of, Lisa opened up another encrypted channel. “Jake. It’s time.”

  “I’m on it,” Jake said.

  With that, three mechs—one MIMAS, one quad, and one bipedal monstrosity—charged from their various hiding spots, their suit lights dimmed so they didn’t stand out too much in the night. The majority of Lisa’s heavy-artillery-bearing Quatro were at their backs.

  Chapter 15

  Textbook

  Jake charged forward, his forearms taking the shape of giant energy cannons, which he fired at the spot on the city walls that his HUD had painted in bright red. Those among the legion of Quatro with heavy artillery strapped to their backs fired on that spot too, and before long, the walls began to buckle and warp, though almost imperceptibly. If it hadn’t been for his advanced night vision, Jake wasn’t sure he would have been able to detect the effect they were having, especially in the darkness.

  Fire from atop the city walls intensified, and the alien mech dream manifested a piercing violin note to notify him of two new arrivals to the battle: a pair of MIMAS mechs hurtling over the parapets to land with a ground-shaking thud.

  Paste and Razor.

  Jake ignored them, for now. They ran to engage the nearest mech—the quad piloted by Rug. As much as Jake wanted to assist, he knew breaching the walls had to be his top priority, and anyway, the Quatro could handle herself.

  Twin rocket launchers took form from Jake’s shoulders, loading and firing ordnance that he’d ordered the mech to fabricate in preparation for this battle. The effect of the resistance army’s concentrated fire on the walls was palpable, now, and definitely visible to the naked eye. Even fortified steel wouldn’t be able to take that kind of stress for much longer.

  The enemy was focusing its fire principally on the mechs, which the dream translated as thousands of venomous hornet stings all across his torso and limbs.

  Jake leapt forward several meters, barely dodging mortar fire. The explosion ruptured the ground behind him, along with the pair of unlucky Quatro that had been standing on it.

  His rage made the sky flash scarlet, and the cursed whispers rose up in discordant harmony. He dashed toward Ingress, sprouting high, thin blades that glowed with intense heat. Plunging them both into the city walls, he strained to draw them apart.

  Jake’s anger crescendoed, and the bayonets disintegrated in a violent explosion of light and heat. Flames bathed Jake, but as the smoke cleared and his vision was restored, he saw that the walls had been breached, with a jagged gap large enough to admit three Quatro at a time.

  He glanced behind him and saw several Quatro staggering across the battlefield, dazed, a couple of them injured.

  I did that. He hadn’t been aware the alien mech was capable of such a move, but he’d let himself be guided by his emotions, which was never a good idea when piloting the deadly machine. Now,
some of his allies had paid the price. He just hoped he hadn’t done any permanent damage to them.

  “Get back,” he shouted at the injured Quatro, waving with enormous metal hands that had reformed in an instant. “You’re in no condition to be at the front.” Beyond those he addressed, the invading army was rushing forward to take the form of a wedge, which would funnel into Ingress as rapidly as possible.

  A deafening boom sounded directly behind Jake, the shockwave making him stagger forward several feet. He turned just in time to see another explosion, which was followed rapidly by dozens more, for hundreds of meters in opposite directions.

  White-hot metal shrapnel screamed through the night, killing the Quatro he’d been concerned about, along with dozens more. Several pieces hit Jake, almost as painfully as the bullets had, and their size and force made him stumble backward.

  An enormous stretch of wall was being blown outward onto the besieging army, visiting havoc upon their ranks. In several places, entire sections of the wall were blown free, crushing any who were unlucky enough to be nearby.

  Jake shook his head, dazed. All across the battlefield, tiny fires blazed from the flaming shrapnel that had covered everything, and Quatro lay groaning and dying in every direction. Jake heard some human cries mixed in, too.

  As his shock began to subside, he realized what Arkady Black had done. It wasn’t hard to piece together, since it was unfolding before his very eyes.

  Black had clearly known the city walls would be breached, and he’d accepted that—incorporated it into his tactics. So he’d blown it out himself, for nearly a kilometer, allowing his army to deploy onto the battlefield with lightning quickness. They were doing so now, and Jake soon saw the superior positioning Black’s move had given them.

  The defenders of Ingress were rushing forward to execute a flanking maneuver more perfect than any Jake remembered from the military history texts he’d devoured while on Valhalla. Tanks were concentrated at the edges of Black’s force, and they began to hammer the Quatro with explosive anti-tank rounds.

  Chapter 16

  This Is Awkward

  For Jake, the only response that made sense to such an unexpected move was a decisive counterattack.

  “To me!” he boomed, using the mech to amplify his voice a hundredfold. “Everyone, to me!” With that, Jake barreled toward the rightmost pincer of Black’s flank, his arms morphing into heavy machine guns he planned to use to rip up the human ranks.

  To their credit, the Quatro rallied quickly, forming themselves into a great, purple javelin to strike at the heart of what amounted to half of the enemy forces.

  With any luck, they’d rapidly disable that formation, and the enemy flanking maneuver would fall apart. Jake began directing his remaining rockets at the tanks, though it took five just to neutralize one of them.

  Black was smart, and he’d spread his tanks out, meaning the resistance mechs couldn’t deal with them easily.

  Worse, Black had also dispersed his mortar teams directly behind his forces, and they rained holy hell onto the Quatro army, landing mortar bombs in random locations and taking out multiple targets more often than not.

  Most devastating was the fact that the leftmost pincer was recovering quickly from Jake’s swift reaction, spreading out behind his and Lisa’s forces to envelop them.

  That’s not good. If the Ingress defenders maintained a superior firing arc for too long, Jake knew the day would be lost, and the resistance would end in fire and death. He doubted Darkstream intended to take many prisoners from among the alien army.

  The state of play on the battlefield shifted rapidly, and without warning, Jake came face to face with the MIMAS mechs piloted by Beth and Henrietta. They both gripped their heavy machine guns, and the moment they saw him they whipped the muzzles toward his head, though they didn’t fire. Not yet.

  Jake did not raise his weapons in kind. “Razor. Paste. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “It’s sort of part of the job at this point, Jake,” Henrietta said, and inside his mech, he winced at her failure to use his Oneiri nickname.

  “Seems a bit senseless, after having each other’s back for so long,” he answered, trying to decide whether he sounded like he was begging or not. “I don’t want to fight you,” he said, and he heard his own voice hitch. “I’ve already watched the people I love suffer way too much. I really don’t want to become just another source of that suffering.”

  The head of Henrietta’s mech twitched toward Beth’s. “Maybe he’s right.”

  Beth replaced her heavy machine gun on her back. Then, with a strangled yell, she extended both her bayonets and charged straight at him.

  Lightning-quick, his machine gun forearms became rounded shields instead. He raised his right shield to parry Beth’s first blow, but her second carried such force that it punctured his left shield, the blade’s point coming to within centimeters of his face. Even inside the mech dream, Jake felt his eyes go cross-eyed for the fraction of a second that he stared at it.

  He wrenched the skewered shield to the left, jerking Beth’s arm along with it. The blade slid out, bending slightly but not snapping, and Beth staggered.

  An anti-tank round connected squarely with Jake’s right side, throwing him backward against a Quatro who was firing on a squad of soldiers clustered near the city walls. The great alien shrieked in pain as the larger alien mech slammed it to the ground, and Jake felt something inside the Quatro’s body give way with a crunch.

  “Sorry!” he yelled, cringing at the damage he’d done, but even if he’d known how, there wasn’t time to minister to the Quatro, or even to make sure it was okay. The side of his mech yawned open from the anti-tank round, and though it was in the process of quickly knitting itself back together, Beth had renewed her vicious assault.

  For her part, Henrietta was circling around, her heavy machine gun still raised and pointing at him. “Sorry, Jake,” she said, squeezing the trigger. His head jerked back with the impact of her burst, and the mech dream represented it as an instant headache, worse than any migraine he’d ever experienced.

  But he couldn’t let it slow him down. Beth was bringing both bayonets to bear once again, forcing Jake back on his heels as he swayed left and right to dodge her thrusts, like a champion boxer about to lose his title.

  Henrietta continued to send heavy ordnance into his right side, and now she started focusing on the spot where the tank round had hit him, her bullets drilling closer and closer to where Jake’s body rested inside the alien mech.

  His vision blurred, and the dream simulated his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Bringing his arms apart in a sweeping gesture, Jake knocked both of Beth’s bayonets aside. He shoved her, sending her reeling backward. “How could you?” he screamed. “We’re teammates, damn you both! Are Darkstream’s profits more important to you?”

  “That thing you pilot will drive you insane, Jake,” Beth yelled back. “Roach’s mech turned him into a mad dog, and he ran Ash through. He nearly killed her. You were lost to us the moment you climbed inside that mech.”

  Beth charged forward once again, her left blade aimed at Jake’s head. He barely knocked it aside, dancing backward to avoid a slice from the other bayonet.

  But he still couldn’t bring himself to fight. He kept thinking of Sue Anne’s face, racked with pain from her illness. He thought of his mother, and his father, and everything his neighbors back in Hub had gone through.

  I can’t be the cause of more pain for the people I love. He couldn’t, though he cursed himself for a fool that he continued to love the people trying to kill him.

  The battle raged around them, and Black’s forces enveloped Lisa’s. Henrietta sidestepped smoothly to get a better angle around Beth. She opened up on Jake, sending round after round into his wounded side, preventing it from repairing properly. Her bullets tunneled closer and closer to him.

  They’re going to kill me. Black ordered them to, and they’re really going to do it.
/>
  Rug drew into view behind Henrietta, and for Jake, everything seemed to slow, as though encased in thick gel. An energy cannon sprouted from Rug’s chest, aimed at Henrietta. The Quatro seemed to share none of Jake’s hangups when it came to returning the MIMAS pilots’ hostility.

  “Rug, no!” Jake shouted.

  Too late. A massive blast of energy sprouted from her gun, taking Henrietta’s left arm clean off, and causing her heavy gun to tumble to the ground.

  Despite the pain Jake knew the mech dream must have been communicating after losing the MIMAS’ arm, Henrietta wasted no time in reacting. She swung her right arm around, its fingers retracting against her wrist to expose the rotary autocannon beneath, and she pelted Rug with it, causing the alien to flinch backward.

  Something was changing on the battlefield. The volume behind Jake had dropped, and the amount of ordnance coming from that direction had lessened, too.

  He turned to take in the reason why. Lisa’s efforts to recruit more Quatro drifts to their cause had paid off in dividends, and just in time, it seemed.

  A second force had arrived—just under half of the existing Quatro force, by Jake’s estimation—and they were pounding Black’s left pincer, eviscerating what had been a devastating flanking maneuver mere moments ago.

  Jake’s rear sensors alerted him to a renewed assault from Beth, and he turned to answer it, but then she suddenly dropped both arms.

  He kept his arms up, wary that this was a ploy of some kind. Except, he noticed more Darkstream soldiers beyond Beth dropping their weapons as well, and raising their hands toward the sky.

  “Black just ordered the surrender,” she said, her tone flat. “He can recognize a rout when he sees one.”

  “I see,” Jake said, finally lowering his arms too. He glanced from Beth to Henrietta, and then back at Beth again. “Well, this is awkward.”

  Chapter 17

  Repelling the Actual Attack