by Brett Patton
Matt and Michelle turned to face their attackers.
But Roth didn’t. His shards recoalesced into a Demon, or at least something very much like one. He’d lost a lot of mass to the Omphalos’ Interstructure Suits attack. He perched on the smooth edge of the glowing power column, clinging tight with his Mecha’s talons.
“What are you doing?” Matt yelled.
“Providing something more than bravado,” Roth said.
Snaking biometallic tendrils caught Roth’s Demon and bound it down to the column. Roth struggled against them, but couldn’t escape.
A new icon flared in Matt’s viewmask, one he’d never seen before. It showed a bright red Mecha, like a Demon, with a warning triangle and exclamation point within it.
ANTIMATTER POWER SYSTEM OVERLOAD, the icon read.
“I’m nothing here,” Roth said, before Matt could ask. “I will carve my sphere out of the Omphalos mind.”
“By blowing yourself up?” Matt yelled.
“By Merging, then eliminating any place for my mind to live afterward.”
Matt rocked back, as if struck. This wasn’t a sacrifice. This was Roth, trying to extend his empire inside the Omphalos’ own universe-spanning network.
He’d given up on humanity.
Matt grimaced and ran his thrusters up to redline, yelling for Michelle to follow. The cloud of Mecha shards arrowed away from the radiant column, toward the masses of Omphalos in Interstructure Suits.
“If you have a plan . . .” Michelle trailed off.
“I have hope,” Matt told her.
Because even if Roth’s action wasn’t really a sacrifice, maybe it could disrupt the Omphalos long enough for them to get out.
Maybe.
Behind Matt, the chamber lit in perfect incandescence. Yellow-white clouds of vaporized rock and biometal engulfed them in a turbulent wave. Matt’s shards tumbled uncontrollably into the middle of the hordes of Omphalos.
But the Omphalos faltered too. Some sputtered and fell dead. Some went in wild corkscrews. Some fired randomly, cutting down their own comrades.
“Come on!” Matt yelled at Michelle. “Go up!”
They pushed through the last of the Omphalos and into empty caverns. Behind them, the giant column of power had been half destroyed. It flickered dull red as it struggled to provide power to the remaining Omphalos.
So not a mortal hit, Matt thought. But a solid one. Hopefully it would be enough.
We prevail, the Omphalos said. But the voice was weak, and pain came in waves.
Matt’s and Michelle’s shards flew up through the chambers. The Omphalos still came at them in their Interstructure Suits, but there were only a handful of them. Matt and Michelle picked them off with relative ease.
Their position tag slowly moved upward toward the corridor where they’d entered.
At the original cavern, the archway was no longer netted with biometallic cords. Some waved weakly at Matt and Michelle as they passed.
Up and up, they went through the corkscrew and out into the Capitol Park. At the fallen Expansion Monument, Matt and Michelle reassembled into tiny red Mecha, the only thing their Demon could create from the few shards they had left. In the distance, night was falling over the city. Union Mecha strafed the biometallic tendrils and transformed buildings.
“It’s not over,” Michelle said.
“It may never be over,” Matt told her. They’d dealt a hard blow to the Omphalos on Eridani, but what about their other caverns buried on humanity’s worlds? And how long would it take the Omphalos to recover from the damage they’d done here?
“Then why do you sound so cheerful?” Michelle asked.
Matt said nothing for a long time. Because they overcame impossible odds. Because the cloak has dropped. Because nothing will ever be the same again. Those were all things he could say.
But he knew there was something more. And it was finally time to say it.
“Because I’m here,” Matt said, eventually. “With you.”
Michelle’s Mecha turned to look at Matt, its visor almost questioning. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I am.”
Michelle said nothing for a long time. Finally her Mecha’s hand reached out and took Matt’s own talons. It felt almost warm through the force-feedback.
“It’s about time,” she told him.
For a while, they stood there, content. But there was still a job to do. Matt nodded at Newhome. “Should we go help them?” he asked.
“You’ll be arrested,” Michelle told him.
“After all this?”
“You know the Union,” Michelle said.
Matt laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”
Two small Mechas ascended into the sky, toward Newhome.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brett Patton, in the words of a friend, “was watching Evangelion while you were reading Heinlein.” Actually, don’t tell anybody, but he was doing both. And actually, don’t tell anyone, but he’s also taking liberties with the quote. He’s been writing fun, action-oriented science fiction for years, and currently in Los Angeles, California.
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CONNECT ONLINE
www.brettpatton.com
Novels of the Armor Wars
Mecha Corps
Mecha Rogue
