Salvage Conquest

by Chris Kennedy

  Then, suddenly, the shuttle blew up.

  In the aftermath of the event, we learned that the Tuskers had tried to hide some nuclear weapons inside their tribute and an analyzer inside the ship had found them. The resulting detonation slagged everything within a five-mile radius. As the airport was well outside the capital, though, the aliens must have decided that losing the airport wasn’t enough, and an additional message was needed. The aliens rodded three more of the Tuskers’ cities in retribution, including their capital, which was the recipient of the largest rod we’d seen to that point.

  Tribute payment across the globe sped up.

  * * *

  “I’ve got it,” Cinti said, a week later. We’d been watching video of the aliens collecting their tribute because Cinti had decided we needed to ‘do something.’ I wasn’t sure what she wanted to do—or even what we could do—but we weren’t playing video games at the time, so my mom hadn’t kicked us out of the tree. Yet.

  “What have you got, exactly?”

  “I know how we can defeat the aliens.”

  One of my eyebrows went up, against my better judgement. “Oh? How’s that?”

  She flipped the video station. The aliens hadn’t destroyed our telescopes, and one of the news services was showing round-the-clock video of the aliens. “We’ll steal two mechs from the demobilization facility outside of town. We can ride up to space on one of the collector craft, and we’ll attack them once we get inside the mother ship.”

  “Are you serious?” I exclaimed. “That’s what the military is for—doing crazy things like that. We’re just kids!”

  “Maybe,” Cinti allowed. “But who is the best player of Worlds at War?” she asked, standing straighter. “Who is the best mech driver you know?”

  “I am,” I replied.

  “Okay,” she said, making a face. “So who is the second best?”

  “You are,” I allowed, not liking where this was going.

  “So, if the government isn’t going to do anything but give in to the aliens, it’s up to us to do it.”

  “Cinti, driving a mech in a video game is nothing like actually operating a mech in combat.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Well, because I do,” I replied. “I mean, it has to be, right?”

  “Does it? The game’s manufacturers said it was the most accurate game ever made, and that the controls are 100% lifelike.” The game was also one of the most expensive on the market—it came with a haptic suit you plugged into the computer and everything—just like a real mech.

  “Those mechs are old,” I said. “We don’t even use them anymore.”

  “No, but they are still ready to go at a moment’s notice—some of them are, anyway,” she said. “One of my dad’s friends works at the demob facility, and I asked him some questions.”

  “Where exactly are these ‘ready for use’ mechs?” I asked. “And how exactly are we going to get them?”

  “Well…” she said, drawing out the end of the word. “They are sorta kept inside a building at the facility.” I started to say something, but she continued in a rush, “They have to be kept inside in order to keep them ready to go.”

  “And so, what? We just break in there and steal them?”

  “Yep. I know what building they’re in and have a plan to get us inside.”

  “And then what? How are we going to get them up to the alien ship? Just walk into the collectors when they show up? ‘Don’t mind us. We’re just here for a ride to the mother ship so we can kick your butts!’”

  She punched me in the arm. “Don’t be a jerk. No—like I said we ride up to the alien ship on the outside of the collector.”

  “And you don’t think the aliens will notice? Don’t you think they’ll come out and do some sort of preflight before they fly back to the ship?”

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because those ships aren’t manned. They’re drones or remote controlled—something like that.”

  I cocked my head at her. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why do you think that?”

  “Well, first, they detonated that one shuttle they sent to the Tuskers. Would they have done that if they had crew onboard?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe life is cheap wherever they’re from.”

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “But watch,” she said, pointing to the video. On the screen, a truck was pulling away from a shuttle. The boarding ramp retracted, the ship sealed, and it jumped into the air.

  “See?” Cinti asked. “Nobody came out. Just like every other launch I’ve watched. Not only that, but they have some sort of counter-gravity or null gravity or repulsor system. Did you see how it went straight up, but there wasn’t any sort of jet exhaust?”

  I nodded. I had thought it odd, but hadn’t really devoted any brain power to it. They were aliens; they did what aliens do.

  “That’s because they have some sort of counter-gravity system. I’ll bet the shuttle automatically nulls out the weight of the ship. I doubt anyone really looks at it—with different loads of metals, it will weigh differently each time. No one will even know we’re coming until we get there.”

  “Okay, so we steal two mechs, attach ourselves to the shuttle, and ride it up to the mother ship. Assuming we’re able to accomplish all this, then what?”

  “We go through the ship, shooting things up, until they surrender. Then we make them land the spaceship on the planet, and we capture all the aliens and take back our treasure. Easy peasy.”

  “What if they have more powerful weapons than the mechs?”

  “Well, Mr. Negative, if we do all that and get all the way there, and they have really powerful weapons, then I guess we die,” she said in an exasperated tone of voice. “But do you really think they need powerful weapons on the inside of the ship when they have really powerful weapons on the outside? That they have some sort of Marine force standing around ready to repel boarders? Do you think that happens a lot?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Of course not. And, for all we know, the ship is crewed by robots, just like the shuttles are. I mean, we’ve never seen a single one of the aliens—how do we know they even exist? All we’ve got to go on is a radio broadcast.”

  I nodded. That much, at least, was true.

  “So,” she said, looking at me expectantly.

  “So what?”

  “So, are you going to help me?”

  “Cinti, you have to be crazy. I don’t see any way this could work.”

  “There would be a lot higher chance if you helped.”

  “Well, that’s probably true. I am the better mech driver.”

  “So, you’ll help? Awesome!”

  “I didn’t say I’d help.”

  “But you wouldn’t want me to do it alone, with such a small chance of being successful, would you?”

  I didn’t want to answer that question; I could see where it led. “I could always tell your parents…”

  “And I’d still figure out a way to do it, and I would never talk to you again.”

  “Well…”

  “Besides,” she said. “What do you think the aliens are going to do once they have all of our resources?”

  “Fly off to wherever it is they’re from and live a life of luxury?”

  “Leaving us all alive to come after them? Or to tell other races what they did?”

  “What?”

  “Look. They obviously have no regard for Welmat life. They’ve destroyed how many of our cities? Six? Seven?” I nodded. “That’s millions of people. They. Don’t. Care. Once they have what they want, what’s to stop them from eliminating everyone else on the planet?”

  “Um…”

  “Exactly. Once they have what they want, I think they’re going to ultimately kill us all. That’s the only way to prevent us from coming after them or hiring someone else to do it for us. Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop them now—while we have a chance
—than to allow this to happen?”

  Another question I didn’t want to answer, as I could see where it led. She continued to stare at me, though, and I had to answer in the end. “Yes, it would be better to stop them than to let them kill everyone.”

  “Will you help me?”

  I sighed. Heavily. If we didn’t do it, there was no one else who would. “Yeah, I’m in.”

  * * *

  The demobilization facility didn’t look like much, just a couple of large warehouse buildings with some smaller support structures, sitting on the plain to the west of our home forest. The fence that surrounded it was impressive, though. It was at least eight feet tall, with coils of some sort of wire on top that had razor blades attached. It made my fur stand on end just looking at it.

  “You want to go over that?”

  “Of course not,” she replied. “That would be stupid. Follow me.” She led me along the edge of the forest toward where the gate was.

  “You’re not planning to try to sneak in through the gate are you? They have guards, you know.”

  She turned and gave me an exasperated look. “Are you trying to get us caught?” she whispered.

  I shook my head, even though I was pretty sure that getting caught—while painful—would be the best possible ending for the evening’s activities.

  “Good, then shut up,” she whispered. “Of course we’re not going through the gate. That would be even stupider than trying to go over the fence.” She pointed to a dry stream bed. “If you can’t go over or through, go under.”

  I looked and, sure enough, there was a little space between the bottom of the fence and the ground. She got on her back in the stream bed and pushed with her feet until she was half way through, then sat up and pushed backward with her hands until she was clear.

  Cinti reached back through and grabbed our packs, then she stood and looked at me as I stared at the gap under the fence. I hadn’t moved an inch. “Well?” she asked finally. The exasperation in her earlier look was nothing compared to the tone of her voice.

  I looked at the fence another couple of seconds longer. Once I did this, I was committed, and the best I could hope for was to get killed along the way, as I was sure whatever my parents did to me was going to be worse. With a sigh, I got down on my back and started sliding through the gap. Of course, since I was bigger than Cinti, I didn’t fit as well, and she had to come lift the bottom of the fence a little so I could get through.

  It was tight, but I made it. Somehow, the dread I’d been feeling went away as I stood up; for good or ill, I was now committed.

  For the first time, I looked—really looked—at the facility beyond the fence. By coming through where we did, we avoided the road into the installation and were able to approach the larger of the two buildings from the back where we—hopefully—wouldn’t be seen. We raced across the intervening space to the back of the building.

  “What…now?” I asked as I tried to catch my breath. Maybe my parents were right about my needing more time on the ground running around.

  She put her finger to her lips and pulled a length of cord out of her bag. The end had a claw tied to it, but the metal tines were all covered in rubber. She handed me the rope and the claw, then pointed up at a small pipe sticking out of the sloping roof about 30 feet up.

  “How long have you been planning this?” I asked in awe.

  “A little while,” she whispered, looking embarrassed. “I checked it out last night, but this is as far as I got. I couldn’t throw it high enough.”

  I nodded. It was going to be a difficult toss for me, and Cinti wasn’t as strong. I took a few steps back to get a better angle then tossed the claw. It didn’t make it onto the roof and made a dull donk! as it hit the side of the metal building.

  “Careful!” she exclaimed.

  I wound the rope back up and tossed it again. This time it made it onto the roof, but I was unable to hook the pipe. The claw fell back to the dirt but was nearly silent when it hit. I looked up, and Cinti was tapping her foot. “You’re not trying,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I am!” I thought I’d been, anyway—I didn’t know if my subconscious was sabotaging me, but I wasn’t consciously failing. I gathered the rope again and tossed it. This time it went high enough, and I dashed to the side so the claw ended up hooking the pipe as it came back down.

  Keeping tension on the rope so the claw didn’t flip off the pipe, I offered it to Cinti with a smile and what I thought was a dashing bow.

  “About time,” she said.

  She scampered up the rope like the arboreal person she was. Once she was clear, I followed her up the rope. I may not be able to run across open spaces, but I can climb pretty well. The rope jerked a couple of times, but then I made it to the roof.

  “You need to go on a diet,” Cinti said, pointing at the pipe. It was now bent at a 45-degree angle. “I had to help hold the rope or that would have snapped off.”

  I shrugged. “Like I’ve ever worried about whether I’d have to climb up the outside of a restricted facility.”

  “I was just kidding,” she said. She punched me in the shoulder, harder than I thought was necessary, and I winced. “Oh, don’t be such a big baby.” She wound up the rope and stuck it back in her pack. “Let’s go.”

  She led me across the roof to a section that was flat, and we dropped down onto the observation deck.

  Breaking into the building was easy from there. We walked over to the exit door, turned the handle, and walked into the stairwell. Apparently, no one felt the need to lock the door on the roof of a secure building in the middle of a guarded base. It worked for me. The rest of the journey was anticlimactic—we went down the stairs and exited into a large hangar.

  I turned and sighed as I saw the mechs. I’d always hoped to go into the military and drive one, but then they’d decided to get rid of mechs in the weapons reduction talks. I’d given up my hope of ever seeing one, much less driving one.

  They were beautiful. Some people might not have thought so—they had obviously seen some action as their paint was peeling, and they were scored with laser strikes in a number of places—but I fell in love with them. They were about eight feet tall and were scaled-down versions of some other race’s mechs, built to fit our three-foot-tall bodies. I looked up at them in awe—they still had rocket launchers on their shoulders, railguns and machine guns on their arms, and, best of all, mounted sword blades for close-in action. Just like Worlds at War.

  I walked across the floor like I was in a dream, my eyes wide and my jaw hanging open in awe, but then Cinti grabbed my hand and rushed me forward, ruining the moment. “C’mon!” she urged. “Get your suit on and get one of them fired up!”

  Pulling my haptic suit from my backpack, I quickly slipped it on. I picked a mech that looked less damaged than the others, and I climbed up the right leg, spun, and eased myself backward into the cockpit. As I slid in, my feet automatically went into the control boots mounted there, then I plugged in the leads from my haptic suit and ran through a couple of initialization routines to get them synched.

  I didn’t have to do much to “fire up” the mech; mech fusion plants remained on at all times unless the mech was undergoing some major maintenance. It was cheaper that way. It didn’t take long to bring it up to full power and get the systems online, and as I flipped the last switch—all done by memory—I had to stifle a giggle. I was about to achieve a lifelong dream—I was going to drive a mech.

  I toggled the canopy closed, and the screens came on as it sealed. There were a number of exterior cameras, and I had two screens that allowed me to look left and right. When I turned my head further, the screens panned to show me what was behind the mech. A third screen showed me what was in front of the mech. While I could just look out the steelglass canopy to see what was there, the screen gave me the ability to bring up a number of filters—like infrared—as well as to magnify images.

  In addition to the camera screens, there was a fourth
screen that showed the mech’s status—mostly green, with a couple of systems in the gold of “needs maintenance”—as well as the ammunition loadout, communications, and navigation. The video game company hadn’t lied—Worlds at War was the most realistic mech game ever.

  Toggling the maneuvering systems’ switch to “Operate,” I took a tentative step forward. As I lifted my foot, the mech mimicked my movements. All I had to do was walk normally, and it would do the same. There was a minor feedback delay I didn’t feel in the game, but it was easy to adapt to it. You could actually set the game to have that delay—for maximum authenticity—but that gave your opponent a split-second’s edge so no one ever did. I certainly didn’t, anyway.

  I moved around the warehouse, getting used to the controls, trying to do it as quietly as possible. Not that two tons of steel moving around could really be called, “quiet.” There obviously wasn’t anyone in the building after hours, or I’m sure they would have come by to find out what was going on. After a couple of minutes, Cinti joined me, and we went through a few combat exercises.

  As we completed the second one, Cinti maneuvered her mech in front of mine and hand-signaled, “125.37.” I slapped myself on the forehead. This would be easier if I could talk to her. I dialed the frequency into the radio. “I’m up,” I transmitted.

  “Good. Follow me.” She maneuvered her mech to the giant roll-up door. “I’m going to get out and open the door, then we’ll run as fast as we can.”

  As she climbed down from her mech, I said a quick prayer that no one would see us as we left. Of course, it didn’t happen that way.

  “Freeze!” a voice yelled as the door started up. A security guard stood outside with his pistol drawn. He aimed it at Cinti, who froze. From the look on her face, I was pretty sure this situation had never been addressed in all the planning she’d done. She stood, immobile, with her hands in the air.