Desperate Measures

by Michael Anderle

  The squad wandered deeper into the room, sweeping in all directions in case flying yaoguai dropped from above, or chameleon badger dragons ripped from the ceiling and tried to eat their faces. If Vincke had run, there was only one possible direction.

  A massive explosion from behind shook the room. Smoke filled Jia’s rearview camera feed. She spun, assuming an ambush by enemy humans or Tin Men, but when the smoke cleared, there was nothing but a massive pile of rubble blocking the entrance.

  A loud, mocking laugh sounded from all around them. Jia didn’t need to see the man to recognize Dr. Vincke.

  “I’m disobeying orders,” he taunted. “But I couldn’t resist. It’s a special responsibility, but also a special opportunity?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jia shouted.

  “I could have buried you here easily. That’s what I was supposed to do. My orders came from the highest people, those I never thought I’d get to talk to.” Reverence filled his voice. “That was when I knew this was an exceptional duty.”

  “Okay,” Erik replied. He pointed his rifle upward at an angle. “You got us. Why don’t you explain a little more?”

  All four exoskeletons formed a square formation with overlapping fields of fire. While it was impossible to surprise anyone because of the rearview cameras, that wouldn’t mean much if they couldn’t put rounds in an ambushing target.

  “Oh, so now you fear me?” Vincke asked.

  Jia knew Erik didn’t fear death, not in the way most people did. He also knew when to push his ego aside.

  Emma was above, hacking into the local systems. She might not be able to control the yaoguai, but a complex facility like this was vulnerable to anyone who took control of their systems. The longer they could stall, the better the chance of having every camera and door on their side, let alone any hidden security bots.

  The two soldiers remained silent, keeping their weapons at the ready. While Jia doubted they’d ever been on this exact kind of raid, they were highly trained people who knew how to stow fear.

  “Why didn’t you just kill us when you had the chance?” Jia asked. Vincke wanted to rant, so she would feed that.

  “Because I needed to prove to my masters that my work is worthy.” Vincke let out a defeated sigh. “I’ve made good use of their money and influence, but they don’t think my designs are useful. They think I don’t pay any attention to the politics and the games, but I know what’s going on.”

  Erik nodded for Jia to continue.

  “What’s going on?” Jia asked.

  “They think they have better people,” Vincke shouted. “I’ve been loyal. I was to be elevated. I was giving them something more sustainable than ridiculous Tin Men. My designs are far more stable and directable than the other fools out there. They think I don’t know? I know!”

  Jia smiled. She could work with this maniac’s insecurities.

  “It sounds like they’ve screwed you over, Doctor,” she offered sweetly. “Are you telling me you’re the person responsible for the creation of all the yaoguai we’ve fought today?”

  “Of course I am.” Vincke scoffed quietly. “Obviously, I’ve had assistants for minor pointless technical work, but I’ve done much to eliminate the need for them. I could give them armies they could use to swarm worlds. I just need more time to refine my designs.”

  “That’s impressive,” Jia offered, injecting as much false interest she could into her voice. The disgusting man thought he was worthy of praise, not years in prison.

  “But now I can provide them with the ultimate proof.”

  “By killing us?” Jia jeered. “If they don’t respect you now, why would they respect you in the future? You might have a career with the government. They could use a mind like yours. All you would have to do is help us stop the people who have turned their backs on you.”

  Vincke barked a laugh. “Is that what you think? That I want to join the dying embers of a failing, decadent civilization led by the spineless and weak?”

  “We’ve kicked the conspiracy’s ass plenty,” Erik interrupted. “Including yours. All your fancy monsters and none of my people are hurt, and all your monsters are on the ground with a lot of new experimental breathing holes.” He moved his rifle back and forth, looking for a target. “We can make this easy, asshole. Surrender to us, or you might end up looking a lot like your pets. It doesn’t matter. Even if you do manage to escape, the conspiracy’s just going to see a piece of shit loser who couldn’t stop some exos from blowing away his mighty army.”

  “You’re exactly what I imagined, Blackwell,” seethed Vincke.

  “I thought you didn’t know who we were,” he answered, bored.

  “I lied, fool,” Vincke responded. “I see now you’re nothing more than an arrogant meathead who has gotten lucky and coasted along with the help of various government tools. You think you can stop my masters? Stop people who have a vision beyond any you could possibly imagine?”

  “Then why don’t you educate us?” Jia asked. “Why don’t you tell us about your plan? You’ve already disobeyed their orders. No going back.”

  “You don’t understand.” Vincke sighed. “You understand nothing.”

  A red holographic alarm light spun in the distance over one of the large doors. Shrill klaxons sounded.

  “I disobeyed to do my final field tests,” Vincke crowed. “I’ll prove to them the power of the weapons I can give them by using them to defeat two of their greatest enemies. You’ll become sacrifices to a greater future for humanity.”

  The door began to slide down, rumbling. Something let out a deep roar that rattled the grated floor.

  “The bigger they are, the harder they fall?” Jia suggested.

  “Nope.” Erik loaded a plasma grenade as the others readied their weapons. “The bigger they are, the harder they hit.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The massive door lifted with surprising speed. Sparks flew from the sides as light from the cavern flooded the darkened pen, revealing the outline of a pair of four-legged, two-armed behemoths easily three times the size of an exo.

  Erik took a deep breath.

  After all this time fighting the conspiracy, a giant yaoguai seemed the logical end of a raid against a major facility. He was happy it appeared to be a monster and didn’t have missile launchers or laser cannons grafted to its shoulders. Given their luck, he’d expected to see a half-Hunter conspiracy assassin show up and try to kill him the next time he had a beignet.

  That left the monsters in front of them—conventional by conspiracy standards, disgusting aberrations by all rules of civilization. Dark green plates covered their bodies. Claws the size of swords protruded from their paws. Massive protrusions extended from both arms, reminding Erik far too much of the ballistic shields of an exo.

  He didn’t need to be a genetic engineer to understand that form followed function. These were living tanks designed and bred to face off against people like him.

  “Kind of annoying,” Erik murmured. He raised his voice. “Let’s waste more conspiracy money. I don’t care how big they are. They’ve got to have a weakness.”

  “Maybe they’re lactose-intolerant,” Jia joked.

  The behemoths stomped forward, their heavy steps shaking the ground. The monsters set their arms together so the protrusions formed a barrier that blocked the bulk of their bodies and galloped forward surprisingly fast. Vincke’s mocking laughter filled the air.

  Erik cared more about finding that guy and putting him in his place than taking down the giant yaoguai. They were another obstacle—a big one, but nothing more than that.

  “Eat this, you giant bastard.” Alpha Six launched a rocket.

  The behemoth charged through the explosion without slowing. It cleared the smoke and flame, revealing that its arm shields had survived, although they were thinner. Small pieces of the top layer remained, but most were scattered on the ground in charred chunks near the site of impact.

  “A monster w
ith ablative armor. What will they think of next?” Erik muttered. “Get ready to throw everything we’ve got at them. For all we know, these things can regenerate.”

  An annoying familiar cacophonous buzzing sounded right before scorpion bees poured into the open chamber. Erik downed some with bursts but was more worried about the behemoths. He’d suspected earlier the enemy might be trying to run down their ammo, and this was likely the reason. Nothing alive was invulnerable, but something that large would be able to take a lot of punishment before going down.

  Jia kicked her exo into a sprint, avoiding a charging behemoth. She fired bursts into the armored hide, accomplishing little but crushed bullets and casings clattering to the ground. The monster was slower than an exo at top speed, but the cramped conditions made it difficult to achieve that velocity. Superior burst speed gave the behemoths a slight advantage.

  Vincke had understood exactly what he’d been doing.

  Erik would consider congratulating him after punching him in the face, but the scientist hadn’t risked unleashing the behemoths before, which meant he was worried the full team would be able to defeat them. The rocket had weakened their arm shields, so the theory was simple.

  Throw enough explosives at anything alive, and it’d die. He called it Blackwell’s Law.

  The scorpion bee swarm now filled the air, swirling and diving toward the interlopers but ignoring the behemoths. Erik didn’t have time to think too closely about how Vincke had accomplished that as he shot the monsters out the air or crushed closer attacks with a bash from his expanded shield.

  Exoskeletons were useful weapon systems that made it easy for a soldier to expand his capabilities. But like all human weapons, they’d been designed for a specific purpose and enemy: other human weapon systems.

  No one had anticipated exos having to fight swarms of scorpion bees or dire wolves. The battles against yaoguai in recent years made Erik wonder what would happen when humans had to fight anything more than a minor skirmish against intelligent aliens. Their weapons would have to adapt.

  Erik growled and shook off some scorpion bees. They had crawled up the arm of his exo. Some snapped their claws against the exo’s armor. Others tried to move in farther and get the operator underneath. With a back thrust, he pulled free of the pests and unleashed two bursts to end their unholy lives.

  Alpha Three launched plasma grenades into the swarm, the explosions vaporizing groups of the yaoguai. The soldier continued to fire steadily at the new enemy air force but was smart enough to keep moving. He dodged between tanks to avoid the swarm, clearing some of the larger ones with a pulse of his jump thrusters.

  The large number of flying, buzzing monsters forced the attention of all the exoskeletons present, but the original enemies didn’t stop. A behemoth rushed toward Alpha Six, who offered it another rocket. It peeled another layer off the arm shields, but the yaoguai closed the distance before the third rocket could be fired.

  Alpha Six grunted as the explosion from his rocket knocked his exoskeleton back, but his shield saved him from the brunt of the damage. Nearby, Alpha Three turned away from the scorpion bees near him and opened up with his rifle on full auto into the back of the behemoth. He didn’t do much other than chipping the armor, but he did force the monster’s attention away from the other downed soldier, who managed to right his exo and jump to the side. He followed up with another rocket attack, but it hit a scorpion bee in front of the behemoth, killing others nearby but barely touching the monster.

  More flying yaoguai filled the hole. Many stayed near the behemoth, circling it and ignoring the humans.

  “It’s like living chaff!” Jia exclaimed.

  “I liked it better when we shot something and it died,” Erik grumbled.

  He jumped over a gestation tank and arced a plasma grenade behind the other behemoth. It roared as the explosion shoved it forward. After a couple of meters, it changed direction. The attack hadn’t penetrated its back armor, despite burning through several layers. He didn’t have time to follow up as scorpion bees swarmed him. More trickled in from the open chamber.

  “It’s surprisingly easy to get them to work together with the right scents,” Vincke explained, his tone condescending. “That was one of my realizations for how to go about controlling all my creations. Work with instincts, not against them. It seems obvious, but it’s not.”

  Erik tried to ignore the scientist and drown him out with the help of his rifle. Scorpion bees fell one after another, but Vincke continued his rant.

  “Of course, my masters wanted something that offered finer control, but there are tradeoffs to everything. Nature loves balance, and pushing her toward extremes makes things less sustainable. But this is just a small taste of a small force.” Vincke sighed. “Admittedly, there are residual design flaws. It’s difficult to keep them alive for long, and there is a lot of genetic instability I need to constantly watch for, but I can work those problems out. All my research will be even more important now that I’ll have actual field data against a military Special Forces unit, along with Blackwell and Lin. You should understand that’s why I didn’t kill you right away. I needed data, so don’t think you’ve accomplished any great victories because you won’t be leaving this place alive. Take some small comfort in knowing your deaths will advance my research.”

  “You haven’t won yet,” Erik shouted.

  His next attempt to launch a plasma grenade toward a behemoth was thwarted by scorpion bees. He didn’t consider it a total waste since each grenade was blowing flying yaoguai out of the air. The trickle from before had finally stopped. No reinforcements meant an end to the madness. Another smash from his shield knocked a scorpion bee out of the air.

  Erik ran backward, trying to escape the thicket of monsters. He glanced at the two behemoths, looking for any small advantage his team could use against them. He grinned as he noticed something important.

  That was the problem with specialists. They figured because they knew a lot about their own field, they understood everyone else’s. Vincke thought he was clever because of what he created. The scientist thought he understood tactical and battle necessities, but he didn’t seem to understand that defenses that took away a weapon system’s advantages were useless.

  The behemoths had appeared first, but they now appeared unwilling to charge through the scorpion bees, reducing their mobility. Their buzzing cloud of protection might save them from major explosives, but it also reduced their contribution to the fight to nothing but a vague menace. Calm, disciplined tactical assessment reduced their danger.

  “Clear the flyers first,” Erik shouted before crisping another group of scorpion bees with plasma grenades. “But save some grenades for their friends.”

  He hoped Vincke was sitting in an office somewhere, his hands clutched tightly, realizing how badly his attempt to take them down was about to go.

  Jia bounded from tank to tank, alternating between rifle bursts and grenades. She attacked different parts of the swarm, creating holes the other monsters quickly filled. Erik shot a couple of scorpion bees off the shoulder of her exo before blowing up a group near a behemoth.

  Alpha Three and Six moved faster and more confidently. They didn’t stop and allow the yaoguai to swarm them. Their rockets and plasma grenades plowed their road and further reduced the enemy’s strength. A combined assault annihilated an entire wall of scorpion bees in front of a behemoth.

  The monster was too close to Alpha Six. Sensing its opportunity now that its living shields were gone, the behemoth surged forward. Alpha Six’s next rocket missed it by centimeters, exploding behind it before the behemoth smashed into his exoskeleton. The monster battered the rocket launcher, wrenching it to the side before bashing the exo’s rifle and bending the barrel.

  “Get off me, you damned freak!” Alpha Six shouted.

  “I’ll keep the flyers off you,” Jia shouted to Erik. “Help him.”

  She followed up with four shots in rapid succession that dropp
ed the scorpion bees closet to Erik. He ran toward the downed Alpha Six. All he needed was one opportunity.

  A grenade from Alpha Three blew up a couple meters behind the behemoth, searing its already weakened back armor. The monster ignored the attack and continued pummeling and clawing Alpha Six’s exo, gouging the armored frame. Alpha Six tried to hit it with his expanded shield, but the behemoth pinned the exo’s arms with its two front legs and roared, revealing a mouth circled with jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

  The bastard should have kept his mouth shut. Erik had been waiting for that moment. It was like he said; everything had a weakness, and this was a lot worse than lactose intolerance.

  Erik fired a burst into the behemoth’s throat. Blue blood sprayed all over Alpha Six’s exo, but the creature stepped back, raising its arm shields and swaying.

  The other behemoth rushed at Jia. She waited until the last possible moment before jumping straight up, her thrusters singeing the top of its head. She raked it with a burst before landing and jumping again.

  Free use of rockets and grenades had thinned the scorpion bees. Erik doubted Vincke had any more in reserve. He sent another grenade toward the behemoth near Alpha Six. The explosion blew through what was left of its arm shields and blew away a good portion of its surface armor.

  Erik was liking this, but the battle wasn’t over.

  The creature’s movements were clumsier and slower, but it was far from dead. Most of the team’s grenades and rockets were gone, and ammo levels were reaching critical.

  Scorpion bee bodies rained from above, victims of Jia and Alpha Three. The enemy air force was defeated, and that left only the yaoguai assault infantry.

  “Concentrate on the wounded one,” Erik ordered. “After me, go in callsign order.”

  The four exos all took full advantage of the mobility provided by their jump thrusters to leap from tank to tank, never staying in one spot. While the behemoths’ charge speed and size were impressive, they couldn’t jump, and without the scorpion bees, there was nothing to keep the exos out of the air. One of the oldest principles of warfare was to take the high ground.