Infliction (Mech Wars Book 4)

by Scott Bartlett

  Their training clearly wasn’t like what Roach put us through, Ash reflected as she watched the MIMAS trainees coordinate a mock assault against a simulated enemy’s position on Valhalla’s Endless Beach.

  The new MIMAS team had chosen the name Phantom, which Ash didn’t think fit very well. Either way, their coordination was lackluster, coming nowhere close to the hairpin tactical pivots Oneiri Team had executed on a regular basis. It was Ash’s job to teach them to emulate that level of responsiveness, she supposed, but the material she had to work with was a far cry from the hardened weapons that Roach’s training had made of Ash and the others.

  Of course, she still wasn’t prepared to think of what Roach had done to them as humane, but maybe it had come close to being justified. She wouldn’t have said that at the time, but now she felt grateful that she’d become tough enough to endure the horrors that Eresos had subjected Oneiri to.

  Few of her memories involving Roach were fond ones. But for this, she did offer him quiet thanks.

  “Tighten up that formation,” she barked into the coms of the five mechs making up the sneak attack’s main thrust.

  “Sneak attack” had been their term, not hers, and it wasn’t exactly what she would have called it. Any enemy commander worth his or her salt would have handily anticipated an attack from the trajectory they’d chosen, which made it wholly unsurprising when the simulated enemy succeeded in surrounding the MIMAS pilots. That done, they began tearing them apart.

  Ash fought her mounting agitation, which urged her to chew them out for the eighth time this week. Instead, she started pacing her own mech up and down the sand.

  Maybe it’s a good thing their training wasn’t as rigorous as ours. She remembered rumors that the Darkstream brass hadn’t liked how rough Roach had been on them, and they’d likely scrapped his program for one of their own design.

  Did she actually want to try to fix the bad habits the new pilots had been left with? Do I really want to improve the soldiers who’ll be ordered to kill my friends?

  A few of the new pilots were capable soldiers, despite Darkstream’s bungling. Ash had seen early on how well-rounded Seaman Apprentice Maura Odell was. Her only real shortcoming was being lumped in with a team that lacked cohesion. Orson Cole had a keen tactical mind, but he wasn’t persuasive enough to sell his ideas to his teammates, who couldn’t appreciate their value. And Benny Cho was a dead shot who really should have been providing fire support in the current exercise, rather than leading the frontal assault.

  The simulated enemy routed Phantom Team, and Ash suppressed a sigh as they approached her slowly, no doubt reluctant to hear her views about what had just gone on.

  The weaker they are, the less of a danger they’ll be to Jake and Marco, Ash reminded herself. Still, it was hard to watch soldiers falling apart when she was responsible for forging them into an effective weapon.

  “I know I don’t need to break down the mess you just made of that,” she said when the eight mechs were assembled before her. “You repeated every mistake I’ve pointed out to you from previous exercises. It’s like you went out of your way not to miss a single mistake.” She shook her head. “Everyone to your bunks. We’re going lucid. Your situational awareness needs a lot of work.” Lucid was ideally suited to that, since it lent authenticity to the emotional component of simulations.

  But that wasn’t her only reason for choosing to conduct this exercise using lucid—nor was it her main reason. Though Darkstream logged everything that happened in lucid, Ash knew they were much laxer when it came to reviewing it than they were with actual events recorded by soldiers’ implants. That made it even less likely that they’d catch on to what she was really trying to accomplish.

  “Officially, I’m not supposed to discuss this with you,” Ash said once the team was once again assembled before her, this time inside the dream. “But it’s no real secret that a resistance force is attacking Ingress, led by MIMAS pilots who have gone rogue. So I might as well use it to guide your training. There’s a chance that the traitors will secure the elevator and use it to attack Valhalla. What I want you to do is design the type of defense that you’d recommend for the station’s garrison to use, and then implement it against a simulated attack. There are no wrong answers, here. If you consider surrender or retreat to be the most viable route, then say so, but justify your response. And know that you’re going to look pretty stupid if you advocate retreat while your teammate organizes a defense that holds out against my simulated attack.” Ash smiled. “Now get to work.”

  She’d intentionally phrased the exercise in a way that sounded like she was discouraging retreat, and it was possible none of them would choose that route. Even so, judging by how conservative each pilot’s defense turned out to be, she’d be able to gauge just how optimistic they were about Valhalla’s chances of repelling the actual attack.

  Her true aim was to figure out which pilots were most pessimistic about Darkstream’s victory. Those would also be the ones most likely to join Jake’s side when the time came.

  Chapter 18

  Imminent Doom

  This should be pleasant, Jake thought sardonically.

  Lisa had directed Black to meet her and her officers in a large plaza near the wall he’d obliterated. Who her officers actually were was a little hazy, and something Lisa was, of necessity, figuring out on the fly. All Jake knew was that he was one of them.

  “Order the enemy MIMAS pilots to get out of their mechs,” Lisa had instructed him over a private channel. “I’m assigning twenty Quatro to guard the mechs themselves. I want you to take both pilots with you to the meeting. Keep them close.”

  “Will do,” he’d said.

  He was certain Lisa had chosen the plaza as their meeting place for symbolic reasons, since otherwise it didn’t actually matter where Black delivered his formal surrender. Having him do so inside the actual city underscored Darkstream’s defeat, and would hopefully circumvent any thoughts among the company forces of going against Black’s decision.

  Jake, Marco, and Rug remained inside their respective mechs, and they escorted Beth and Henrietta toward Ingress in silence, other than the brittle grass that crackled underfoot.

  Jake considered telling Beth that Ash was on his side—that she’d tipped him off about Bronson’s maniacal talk of nuking the planet to defeat the robots. But he decided there was no point. The damage had already been done, to his relationship with both Beth and Henrietta.

  Besides, if anyone with Darkstream finds out that Ash helped me, it could endanger her. Bronson is just one covert transmission away.

  As they neared the wall—or rather, where the wall once had stood—the going became much slower, mainly because of the obstacle the rubble posed to Beth and Henrietta. Without their mechs, they were forced to pick their way over twisted shards of steel that would have posed little risk to a MIMAS. They took it in stride, though, uncomplaining. If he was being honest with himself, Jake had to admit that he hadn’t expected anything less from them. As betrayed as he felt, his estimation of the two women’s proficiency had not fallen.

  At last they drew clear of the rubble, and soon after that the plaza came into view, with its growing gathering of officers. Lisa was already there, along with Tessa Notaras and the leaders of several Quatro drifts. Black was also waiting, with several of his officers, most of whom Jake recognized. Commander Cassandra Odell was present, too, who commanded the Ingress garrison.

  As Jake neared them, he saw the shell-shocked expressions worn by Lisa and several of the others, including many among the Darkstream military personnel.

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked when he reached them.

  Lisa cleared her throat. “Captain Black has just informed me that he surrendered partly because of an enormous host of robots that has been spotted advancing on the city.”

  Overhead, the sky went blood-red, even though dawn was still several hours off. Jake could feel sweat trickling down his back, or at least
the mech simulated the sensation. It’s better than the coat of insects it treated me to back in Hub.

  He turned to Arkady Black. “How long till the robots get here?”

  Black sniffed, his manner closer to someone discussing the advent of some unfavorable weather rather than someone discussing the imminent doom of himself and those around him. “Less than two hours, by our best estimate.”

  Chapter 19

  A Pair of Rockets

  “So we have two hours to coordinate the defense of Eresos’ largest city, against a legion of killer robots,” Jake said.

  “That’s correct,” Black answered.

  “Then maybe blowing the walls apart wasn’t the best idea!” Jake shot back, unable to keep his voice from rising sharply in volume.

  Black shrugged. “I had no idea your treacherous attack would be followed be a second wave of metal attackers. Blowing the walls was the only path I saw to victory against you—it was our only viable option. Doing so enabled me to effectively employ force concentration against you, and it would have worked had it not been for the incredibly lucky arrival of your reinforcements.”

  Jake fell silent, then, fighting the urge to shift his weight under the gaze of everyone present. In truth, he wasn’t sure he could have done much better than Black, if he’d been charged with the defense of Ingress. And Black was right—the extra Quatro’s arrival had been extremely fortunate.

  Black is a talented battle commander. Probably Darkstream’s best.

  Lisa seemed to recognize that, too. “Captain Black, are you willing to work together with us to repel the coming robot assault?”

  Black nodded. “I am.”

  Henrietta looked at Lisa with what wasn’t quite a glare. “Can I have leave to return to my mech?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Lisa nodded. “You have my leave. Until this battle is over, I see no reason not to give your weapon back to you. Circumstances have afforded us a bond of trust, however temporary.”

  “That’s right,” Henrietta said. “We won’t stab you in the back like you did to Darkstream.” With that, she stormed off, and Beth followed, studiously avoiding eye contact with Jake.

  “Relay the situation to the reserve battalion commanders,” Black called after the MIMAS pilots. “Deploy wherever they tell you to.” He turned to Lisa. “My destruction of the walls does present a number of unique challenges, now. The enemy will no doubt concentrate their forces there, but they could easily blow holes in other parts of the wall as well. We’ll have to cluster most of our units near the breach, of course, but we will also need an even distribution of defenders atop the undamaged sections.”

  Lisa nodded. “You’re right. Let’s keep all the tanks next to the breach, but position your mortar teams along the walls, in such a way that allows them to rapidly respond to pressure inflicted by the enemy.”

  “Exactly what I was going to suggest,” Black said, and Jake thought he even sounded a bit impressed.

  “Captain Black, I leave it to you to coordinate the defense of the unbroken walls,” Lisa said. “I will take command of the forces at the breach.”

  Black nodded. “Seems as good an arrangement as any.”

  Jake didn’t think his tone inspired much hope in anyone.

  At first, the members of Lisa’s command structure were silent on the way back to the battlefield. But halfway there, Tessa Notaras spoke up, mostly directing her speech at Lisa:

  “I’ve been skimming the system net,” she said, her jaw tight. “There are reports of settlements all over the planet being overrun by the bots. It always seems to start with Gatherers turning violent as they enter or exit the resource collection sites. They take out as many people as they can before they’re taken out themselves. Shortly after that, with the village still weakened and reeling, the Amblers and Ravagers hit.”

  Lisa shook her head, her expression akin to nausea.

  One of the Quatro leaders spoke up—Salve, whose drift Jake knew Lisa had recruited from the lands to the east of the Barrens. “We aimed to take Ingress in order to give the people of this planet some security from Darkstream. Instead, it seems we must use the elevator ourselves, as our last and only avenue of escape from the robots.”

  “We’re not abandoning Eresos,” Lisa said, her voice firming up. “We’ll repel this wave of attackers, then we’ll deploy to the countryside and save the people who live there.”

  Tessa was shaking her head. “I don’t think there’s going to be much left to save, Lisa. The reports are flooding in of villages being wiped off the map. Almost every attack has inflicted one hundred percent casualty rates.”

  Lisa had no answer for that.

  Rug spoke up, her eyes glowing softly in the pre-dawn darkness: “Tessa Notaras is right, Lisa Sato. We are spending our lives needlessly in fighting this battle for Darkstream. We must escape while we still can.”

  “It’s never a waste when you’re fighting to protect people,” Lisa said. “We’re staying.”

  “I agree,” Jake said, and though it was all he could think to say, Lisa seemed to appreciate his words.

  She smiled up at him. “Thank you, Jake.”

  He nodded. “We made you commander, and we don’t get to change that just because we might not like your orders. Personally, I do like them. Let’s save this city.”

  They reached the curved line of rubble that used to be Ingress’ walls, where resistance and Darkstream soldiers had already widened paths to facilitate a more orderly retreat into the city, in case that became necessary.

  It didn’t take long for Jake to spot Beth and Henrietta, towering above the other soldiers and even the other vehicles in their MIMAS mechs. They were both digging trenches at the front of the battlefield, using their bayonets to loosen the earth and then employing cupped metal hands to scoop it to the front, in a fashion that looked surprisingly efficient, even despite Henrietta’s missing arm.

  Jake noticed many of the soldiers glancing at the mechs frequently, and their spirits seemed to lift whenever they did.

  The mechs are giving them hope, he realized. Since being deployed to Eresos, he hadn’t spent a lot of time among regular infantry, and when he had, he’d only had reason to believe that they resented the MIMAS pilots. But now, in what was probably their most desperate hour, the mechs’ show of vigor and might seemed to be one of the only things keeping the fighting men and women going.

  Seeing former Oneiri members live up to what Oneiri was originally meant to be about…it didn’t seem to fit with his anger over Beth’s and Henrietta’s willingness to try to kill him.

  Could Oneiri ever get back together? He wanted to punch himself for even having that thought, or for daring to hope for it. But if it served the people of the Steele System…shouldn’t he try to get past what they’d done to him?

  “Contact!” someone yelled, riveting Jake’s eyes to the horizon. An Ambler was striding rapidly into view, its broad dome of a head bobbing as it crested the horizon.

  Another dome appeared a few dozen meters to the left, and another rose over the steep hill where the quads had attempted to tunnel into Ingress during a previous attack on the city.

  They’re here. Ahead of schedule.

  Next, the horizon seemed to writhe, as though it had come alive. Jake instructed the mech’s sensors to zoom in, and he saw that the ground was covered with Gatherers. A minute later, swarms of Ravagers followed, striding among their squat fellows.

  The entire metallic mass seethed forward.

  “Open fire!” Lisa shouted over the coms. Jake wasn’t sure whether she’d been given access to Darkstream channels, but it didn’t matter. Once the shooting began, everyone got the message, pumping round after round into the oncoming legion.

  Well before this battle, Jake and others had noted a self-preservation instinct in the planet’s robotic former servants. That instinct did not appear to be in effect today. The concentrated fire of the resistance and Darkstream quickly took out one Ambler
, then another, not to mention countless smaller robots. But it didn’t seem to matter. More Amblers rose over the horizon to replace the ones that had fallen, and the Ravagers charged forward.

  The word “charged” didn’t seem to fit the movement of the Gatherers, though—it was more like crawling. Their lowness served them well, as did the fact that individually, they were fairly low-value targets. As a result, the human soldiers all focused on the taller robots, leaving the Gatherers to sweep forward, quickly closing the distance.

  Jake attempted to rectify that, peppering the front ranks of Gatherers with energy blasts, which he tried to calibrate as conservatively as possible while still taking out multiple Gatherers at a time. Rug caught on to the tactic, mimicking it, and Marco followed suit with both of his rotary autocannons.

  It made no difference. The front of the robot host surged forward, and before long, they were crawling into the trenches with the soldiers. Most of the men and women who’d been crouched there scrambled out, backing toward the city while firing into the metal masses. The braver ones—or perhaps the more foolhardy ones—stayed to fight it out, and Jake’s enhanced vision allowed him to see the blood that spurted into the air all along the makeshift fortification.

  The advent of the Gatherers drew the attention of most of the soldiers, which lessened the pressure on the Ravagers and Amblers, who also started getting closer.

  Abruptly, contrary to their name, the Amblers charged forward, metal feet pounding across the earth. Within seconds they were among the front ranks of infantry, getting hammered by anti-tank round after anti-tank round. Several more of the autonomous mechs went down, but there were too many of them, and the combined Darkstream and resistance fighters were thrown into chaos by the robots in their midst.

  “Retreat!” came Lisa’s voice over the com. “Back into the city!”

  The front ranks were doomed, and most of the soldiers that comprised them seemed to recognize it. In an incredible show of bravery, most of them fought on with increased vigor, spending their final moments to buy time for the rest of the force to fall back into the city while firing on the robots.