by Brett Patton
—or not. Matt remembered the trick they’d used, back in the asteroid soup of the condensing planet. If he couldn’t knock his Hellion attackers off, he could still use the Fusion Handshake.
Fifty meters up, Matt held his hands out in front of him, aiming at the melee with Xie, Norah, and Elize.
Now, he thought, and triggered a Fusion Handshake.
Pure power exploded down his arms. A blue shock wave shot out in front of him, expanding outward in a cone of compressed plasma.
It hit the Hellions on the ground like a hurricane. They blew off the Demons as ice geysered up from the surface in great sheets. Clouds of water vapor billowed, obscuring everything below.
Matt flew backward and landed on his back, knocking his own Hellions loose. Before they could come back at him, he raised his hands again and triggered another Fusion Handshake. The Hellions disappeared in a hail of ice and water vapor. Matt slid backward along the ice for a hundred meters before stopping.
“Use your Fusion Handshakes like this!” Matt said. “Aim arms-out to keep them away, then get a grip on them and let them have it!”
The three Hellions came back at Matt like wraiths emerging from the steam. This time he was ready for them. He put his arms out, faking another defensive Fusion Handshake. As they swung toward his side, Matt grabbed a Hellion at the last second and triggered the close-quarters annihilation wave.
Power surged down his arm. The Hellion went rigid as the fusion shock wave hit it. Electrical discharges arced into the air from its visor, talons, and joints. The whole thing rippled like water, then crumpled inward and fell limp.
Good, Matt thought. One down.
REGENERATION COMPLETE, his POV said as his vision flickered back to a hundred percent.
The two others came at him. Matt triggered thrusters and leapt over them, grabbing each one by its visor as they passed underneath him. Two more Fusion Handshakes later, two more Hellions lay smoking on the ground. They slowly disappeared into a pool of melt-water, as former steam fell as snow on the scene.
Matt surveyed the battle. Norah had two Hellions down and was grappling with another. Xie had one down and two were dancing around him, trying to avoid his outstretched hands. Elize was down on the ground, with three Hellions on top of her. They triggered another burst of Fireflies, and Elize’s Demon convulsed. Her visor shattered and crumpled inward, visual sensors smoking.
Matt moved without thinking, charging forward with his hands out in front of him, triggering a Fusion Handshake. The shock wave shoved him backward, his Demon’s feet cutting channels in the ice. But the Hellions assaulting Elize’s Demon tumbled off. They scrambled to their feet and paused, cat-still, to look back at the battle scene. After a moment, they fled back in the direction they’d come.
Regrouping, Matt thought. Most likely at the heat source.
What waited for them there? More Hellions? Demons? Or something even stranger, cooked up in this bizarre Union base on the edge of nowhere?
Matt went to Elize and helped her up as Norah and Xie dispatched the remaining Hellions. She flailed against him, until the contact between the Demons allowed his thoughts to filter through.
“Major Lowell?” Elize gasped. “I’m sorry! I can’t see!”
“What’s the regeneration counter read?” Matt asked her.
“Regeneration indefinite,” Elize said. “Reconfiguring visual sensors for partial capability.”
Shit. Reconfiguring was bad. Real bad. That meant it could be hours before she got her sight back. Even then, it might not be the same ever again. And Matt couldn’t send her blind back to the UUS Helios.
“What’s the matter, sir?” Norah asked, coming up behind him.
“Watch the horizon,” Matt said. “Let me handle this.”
“Yes, sir,” Norah grated. But she turned obediently and motioned for Xie to take a position opposite her.
“What can I do, uh, sir?” Elize said.
“Hold a sec.” Matt bent over to examine her visual sensors. Her entire visor was cracked open, exposing eight orbs that might once have looked like eyes. Now they were blobs of gooey metallic ooze, surrounded by shredded biomechanical muscle. As he watched, metal flowed and re-formed, and one “eye” slowly regained its shape.
Matt shivered. Mecha were damn near magic technology. Much higher technology than the Union supposedly condoned and regulated.
“I see something!” Elize shouted. “I’m getting, um, looks like heat sigs. False-color imaging.”
“Enough to fight with?”
“No, sir.”
“Still no numbers for regeneration?”
“No.”
Matt swore. He could Merge with Elize. That would probably give them full visual function. But would they be able to work through Elize’s waves of emotional confusion? It was too much of a risk.
“Report, Major,” Colonel Cruz’s voice grated over the comms.
Matt sighed, then rapped out, “Enemy Hellions encountered at the coordinates specified. Nine neutralized, three escaped toward heat signature noted in descent. One Demon down with visual sensors except heat sigs offline, unknown regeneration time.”
“Send the damaged Demon back to the ship,” Cruz ordered.
“Heat sigs aren’t enough for her to navigate back to the ship,” Matt said.
A pause. Then: “I’ll send down our backup squad for a pickup. In the meantime, proceed to the heat signature and eliminate the remaining Hellions and their pilots, as well as any and all other hostiles.”
Matt frowned. Cruz was sending down Marjan and Mikey. It made sense, but it felt bad. Really bad. He didn’t want them at his back.
“What hostiles, sir?” Matt asked. “Corsairs?”
Another pause, this one longer. Then Colonel Cruz replied in a low, rough voice, “Hostiles are anything that moves.”
Anything that moves. Matt’s stomach did a flip-flop. What was he being sent in to do?
“Sir, can I ask—”
“You have your orders, Major. Carry them out.”
Matt clamped his lips down hard on his response. The whole thing smelled bad.
“Acknowledge your orders, Major,” Colonel Cruz growled.
“Acknowledged, sir,” Matt said, choking on the words.
* * *
They left Elize behind with orders to ascend blindly into the sky in the event of any Hellion attack. Theoretically, Marjan and Mikey would be able to intercept and guide her back to the Helios. Theoretically.
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Elize told him. “My visuals are coming back online, a little. I may even be able to join you—”
“Go back, Cadet,” Matt said, his voice sharp and on edge. Elize noticed it. The head of her Demon cocked to one side, as if she wanted to ask him what was wrong.
“Move out, team,” Matt told Norah and Jie.
“Overland or by air, sir?” Norah asked.
Matt frowned. In his POV, the location of the heat source was now clearly marked with a big red OBJECTIVE tag, just over the edge of the horizon. An expanded aerial map put it the middle of one of the blue ice fissures.
That meant two things. One, they were probably dug in to the fissure. Two, on this billiard-ball-smooth planet, they’d be going into battle without cover. There were no mountains or ridges to protect them.
Flying in meant the three remaining Hellions would hide below the edge of the fissure and pick them off as they passed overhead. It also meant they’d be flying directly over whatever weaponry they had hidden in the chasm.
On the other hand, overland meant the enemy would easily sense their approach, and be able to pop up at the least convenient moment. Still, it meant not having to deal with any potential artillery.
“Overland,” Matt said. “Be prepared to go skyward
when I give the order.”
“Yes, sir,” Norah rapped out.
“Understood, sir,” Jie said.
Matt sprang to life and shot off toward the objective at a dead run. His clawed feet ripped the ice, sending up a rooster tail of shards as his ground speed climbed: eighty, a hundred and twenty, two hundred kilometers an hour. The other Demons came to run by his side, powerful red legs pistoning in sync.
The ground blurred past quickly, an endless plain of gray-white under a blue-black sky. Matt lost himself for long moments in the rhythm of Mesh.
Soon tags swarmed in front of him. They were coming over the horizon, in view of the fissure. At first, it was only a line of slightly darker blue-gray against the ice, bleeding background heat into the chill atmosphere. Then it resolved into something with depth—Matt could see the far edge of the ridge, glittering in the sunlight. Together with a hint of something, glowing with warm light, built into the fissure itself. Thin metallic ribs arced over the surface of the glowing object. Through its semitransparent surface, Matt could see hints of movement within.
What the hell? Matt thought. It looked almost like an environmental dome. But why would they have a dome like that, way out here?
He didn’t have long to be puzzled. A new angry red tag popped up in front of him, at the same time two others appeared at his side. The Hellions. Brilliant Fireflies arced at the Demons.
But this time, he was ready.
“Fire thrusters!” Matt said, shooting into the sky.
Norah and Jie followed, their fusion flares blasting the ice surface to clouds of water vapor. Fireflies sparked through the clouds, jagging upward to follow the Demons. Matt waited until they were close enough to see the individual fusion flames.
“Go down now!” Matt shouted at his team. “Aim at the Hellions!” He flipped in midair and fired thrusters skyward, almost blacking out in the savage g-forces. Even suspended in magnetorheological gel, his vision went red.
Matt accelerated downward toward the closest Hellion. The Fireflies turned to follow. The tiny rounds sputtered, their heavy-hydrogen fuel almost exhausted. It would have to be enough.
The Hellion saw what was coming and froze. Matt grinned in guilty delight. He must look like an avenging angel, descending in wrath with falling stars as an escort.
Fifteen meters from the Hellion, Matt hit the thrusters one last time, full-on. This one did knock him out for a moment. His vision disappeared down a tunnel, and there was a second of silence.
When he opened his eyes, his Demon was lying about fifty meters away from the edge of the ravine, and there was nothing left of the Hellion except smoking wreckage.
More Fireflies impacted on Jie’s target in a pillar of flame. The Hellion jerked spasmodically and collapsed, melting into the ice. Jie landed hard next to it, stumbling to get his balance.
Norah’s reverse-Firefly attack had gone wide. She grappled with the untouched Hellion, holding the struggling Mecha’s visor with one hand. Her arm and hand glowed bright, actinic blue, and the powerful boom of a Fusion Handshake rattled the surface ice like a drum. The Hellion’s visor and chestplate folded inward, venting a puff of atmosphere from the pilot’s chamber like a dying gasp.
The three Demons stood alone on the freezing world, with the thin shriek of the wind their only companion.
“I just—I just killed someone,” Jie said, his voice thick with remorse. “In a Hellion. Are they Union Mecha? Was he one of ours?”
“You’re just now realizing this?” Norah cut in.
“Can someone please tell me if I just killed a Corsair, or Mecha Corps?” Jie’s voice choked through tears.
“Can it!” Matt yelled, feeling terrible. He had the same doubts. “We have our orders. And we’ll get through this, one way or another.”
“Yes, sir,” the two adepts said.
Matt breathed deeply, willing his heart to slow its thunderous beat. Everything was upside down, as if he were free-falling over an infinite dark plain. Here he was, fighting the Union’s own Mecha. And this was only the beginning.
Next was whatever was down that fissure.
* * *
Matt crawled cautiously to the edge of the ravine. The fissure was heavily reinforced with metallic struts, its edges deeply gouged by industry. In the center squatted a massive construction of steel and semitransparent duraplas, almost a full kilometer long. The top section of the structure ballooned up, held in place with the metallic ribs Matt had seen earlier. Matt’s enhanced sensors showed an interior temperature that suggested a climate fit for people, and residual oxygen leakage indicated that the thing was pressurized.
Next to the structure, a flat expanse of steel with thruster burns served as a rough spaceport. At one end of the spaceport stood a twenty-meter-diameter air lock. Big enough to admit Demons. Or conceal more Hellions.
But that didn’t make sense. Why would they hold Hellions back? The rest of the fissure didn’t hold any visible weapons.
“We can just blast the roof, sir,” Norah said.
Matt turned to look at her Demon. It had joined him at the edge of the fissure. Jie hung back, as if still shaken by the battle. His claim about not caring about his long life was long gone.
“Our orders are to kill anything moving,” Norah added. “It seems like the easiest solution.”
“Easy doesn’t make it right,” Matt told her, his bile rising. This wasn’t a mission. This was extermination. And he wasn’t going to simply close his eyes and take the easy way out. Not anymore.
To Norah and Xie, he rationalized, “Easy also isn’t definitive. What happens if the structure is full of pressurized chambers? Blow the roof off and they wouldn’t even notice.”
“It limits their movement,” Norah said. “And makes them more likely to freeze to death.”
“We’ll go in through the air lock, Adept. Why don’t you lead us down and unlock it?”
“Yes, sir!” Norah said, her voice thick with sardonic respect.
Norah fired thrusters and descended into the fissure, trailing long waves of fusion heat. Matt half expected her to take fire, but the chasm was cold and dead. Not a single weapons tag floated in his POV. No life signs wrapped in space suits. Nothing. After the Hellions, it was almost too quiet.
Matt motioned for Jie to follow Norah. Jie’s Demon blasted off and descended to join her on the fusion-scarred spaceport decking. Norah advanced to the air lock, taking a position to its side.
Matt fired his thrusters and descended into the fissure. Diffuse sunlight made the sheet ice walls glow sky-blue against the dark metal of the scaffolding. It was almost like descending into a clear blue ocean. Peaceful. Almost serene.
And that wasn’t the only thing that was peaceful. The spaceport was unscarred by Firefly or Sidewinder fire. There weren’t even any telltale dimples from depleted-uranium rounds. If this facility had been compromised by Corsairs fighting the Union Mecha, they’d been awfully discreet. There was no sign of a struggle at all.
When he reached the other two Demons, Norah was bent over the air lock’s control panel. It bore the logo of United Technologies. That was a Union contractor.
This is a Union installation.
Matt rocked back, shivering with a strange sense of unreality. A Union installation? Out here? Why did they send him to a Union facility? What the hell was inside?
Norah finished her work at the control panel. The CYCLING light flashed red and the doors shivered, dislodging flakes of ice. After long moments, the doors cracked open, exhaling a pale puff of residual atmosphere.
“Get back,” Matt told them, stepping to one side of the doors, Zap Gun ready.
Norah and Jie ducked to the other side. Matt waited patiently as the doors rumbled fully open. Dim worklights illuminated a space filled with scarred yellow plastic pressure cr
ates. Matt ducked his head for a better look.
Matt’s POV jerked and rolled as his visor rocked back. Stitches of depleted-uranium bullets spanged off his hide as a dim figure inside struggled to tame the bucking gun.
Matt blinked, finally getting a good look at his assailant. His mouth dropped open in amazement. The gun was an MK-16, full Hellion issue. But it wasn’t a five-meter-tall Hellion holding it. It was a person. A thing. Something three and a half meters tall, its body wrapped head to toe in carbon-fiber weave. Goggles the size of tea saucers covered its eyes, and a crude breathing pipe hooked to an oxygen tank on its back vented white oxygen at every bad weld.
The—thing—wasn’t wearing a space suit at all. It was holding itself together with mechanical binding, and sucking on a raw oxygen tank. Matt’s mind reeled. What the hell was it?
That’s when he noticed its eyes. Violet-and-yellow HuMax eyes.
HuMax.
More fire came from a dozen figures in space suits. They were all HuMax. Some wore real Union space suits, bearing the seal of UARL, Union Advanced Research Labs. Some wore baggy rescue suits. Some were wrapped like the giant thing, taking their chance in the near-vacuum outside. Some had no choice but to be wrapped up in the makeshift suits, with bodies grown grotesquely out of proportion. One had four arms.
All held weapons. Most were MK-1s, but one pair operated another MK-16. The din of gunfire was oddly high-pitched in the thin atmosphere, and the impact of the depleted-uranium slugs was distant, almost painless. The HuMax creatures advanced grimly, squinting against the reprisal they knew was coming.
They’re desperate, Matt thought. They’re protecting their home.
That was why they had attacked the Demons the moment they hit the ground. That was why they’d done that desperate stupid move of trying to capture the Helios. They wanted out. And when they couldn’t get out, they were forced to protect their home, by any means necessary.
But—HuMax in a Union installation? Grotesquely transformed HuMax, at that? What did that mean?
