The Battle For Cyclops: A Xander Cain Novel

by P W Hillard

  Happy that the instant coffee had dissolved properly, Sergei lifted his mug and walked across the break room to the table in the centre. He took a seat, blowing the steam away from the top of the mug. Just knowing about the ice-covered world below was making him cold, a trick of the mind no less effective for Sergei being aware of it. He didn’t envy those on the surface, marching across the ice in a search for an enemy they had only the faintest idea was located. Sergei knew the team on the ground was headed to the northernmost point of interest. The nearest one after that was only a few hours away, but the rest were days apart, spread across the habitable band running across the centre of the planet.

  “Busy?” Tamara was stood in the doorway of the break room, a tablet in her hands as usual.

  “Not really,” Sergei said, looking up from his cup. “Not much to do other than wait right now. Running a mercenary company has a lot of paperwork, but only when things are happening, basically. It’s hard to fill out an after-action report before…well, the action.”

  “Makes sense.” Tamara pulled out a chair and took a seat, placing her tablet on the table before her. The break room was located in the habitation ring, enjoying the pseudo-gravity in that part of the ship. “I need you to authorise some expenditure.” Tamara pushed the tablet across the table. Whilst she was nominally in charge of the companies PR, it was Sergei that held the purse strings.

  He picked it up, eyeing through the document displaying on the screen. “More cameras? What’s wrong with the ones we have?”

  “Those ones are for filming in the field. Small, handheld, lightweight. These are for studio filming, so we can get some really nice high definition shots for interviews and things.”

  “Well that makes sense…wait, what studio?”

  “Oh, if you just…” Tamara reached across and swiped up on the tablet, revealing another long list of items. “It’s also a request to furnish a studio. There’s an unused storage room further down the habitation ring right next to some empty quarters. We can run cables through the wall and use the quarters as a PCR.”

  “PCR?”

  “Production control room. It’s where I can sit and order changes in camera angles and things without the noise impacting the actual studio.”

  “You’re assuming I’m going to authorise this. How much will all of this cost?” Sergei kept sweeping upwards, the itemised list unending.

  “About three million. Maybe a little more.” Tamara's tone was blasé as if she was asking for a few credits to buy a cola, rather than millions to pay for high tech equipment.

  “Three million? I’m sorry but that’s way more than I had in mind.” Sergei pushed the tablet back. “Like several zeroes more.”

  “Well then,” Tamara said, pushing it back again. “Good thing you managed to get us a bigger payment on this job, wasn't it? Come on Sergei, this was our deal when the Paladins was founded. You do the facts and figures, I do the marketing and the PR. I'm saying I need this money, and you need to trust I know what I'm doing.”

  “Ok. Fine. Fine. I’ll sign your forms.”

  “Great. Look if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure you’ll look fine on camera.”

  “Now wait…”

  ***

  Anya wiped the grease off her hands, staining the rag a deep shade of black. Across her face was a wide smile as she gazed at her mechsuit. Most mercenaries did some of their own maintenance work. Give a mercenary a suit for an hour and they would come back with a dozen changes to be made to the machine. Every suit was heavily customised, even if the outside appeared stock. From the resistance in the limbs to the amount of padding in the cabin, a rider had an opinion on everything.

  Anya's customisation was more extreme than others. Her Warden suit was already a heavy combat unit, designed to fight at the front of an assault. Two massive rotary cannons were attached to each arm, capable of spitting a torrent of death at a frightening pace. On the left shoulder was a missile launcher, designed to offer long-range support when needed. Anya used to have a second on the right shoulder, but the events of Hades had shown her that she needed a back up to her cannons. The guns were powerful, but chewed through ammo incredibly quickly and were almost impossible to reload in the field.

  It was the change on the right shoulder that Anya had been completing, having picked up her new equipment from a store back on the station. The missile launcher had been swapped out for a heavy cannon. At the moment it was retracted behind the suit’s back, pointing towards the roof of the bay, but in combat it would slide forward, firing from her shoulder. It was still a heavier weapon than anything the other suits would carry. Fitting it had been a pain, it wasn’t part of a Warden’s standard options.

  “Looks good,” Alexi said. He was floating upside down beside his suit, a wrench in his hands. “Should give some Black Rose a nasty fright.”

  “It’s a backup weapon, so hopefully not.”

  “You and I both know you’re going to use that thing and your main cannons, at the same time.”

  Anya didn’t reply, instead just shrugging. Alexi wasn’t wrong. She watched him work, tightening a set of bolts by hand. Anya had suggested using an impact wrench, but Alexi had just muttered something about trusting his own hands more. He was currently trying to attach the now spare missile launcher to the left shoulder of his Defender.

  A standard medium-sized mech, the Defender was a workhorse. The company had purchased two brand new ones not long after it was founded. Alexi's original one had been destroyed during the Hades incident, and the one Xander was riding was functional, but needed enough repairs that relegating it to an emergency backup suit had seemed like a good idea.

  “That’s looking good up there,” Anya said. “Might be an idea to block off a few of the launchers, a full complement of ammo might be a little heavy for the connection.”

  “I think it should be fine. I’ve added some reinforcement for the joint. Plus, you know as well as I do that the manufacturers lie about maximum loads. They downplay them so if something goes wrong, they can blame operator error and weasel out of lawsuits.”

  “I think maybe if you go over the limit, and something goes wrong, then maybe they're right, to begin with?”

  “Nah,” Alexi said. “It’s just standard corporate bullshit.”

  “Well, ok.” Anya crossed her arms, staring at her floating comrade. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Xander had to admit it was an impressive sight. He knew, logically, that a similar thing happened on nearly every planet, but it was still awe-inspiring to look at. A great barrier between the night and day, a line across the world where the light from its star could no longer touch. To look one way was to look at a perpetual sunrise, an orange glow filling the sky, whilst to look the other was to see the stars above. One of those twinkling lights was the Sunchaser, ironically hiding in the darkness despite its name.

  The warm winds blowing in from the daylight side of the planet were helping with the performance of the suits, the dark not having the chance to sap the heat from them. Xander and Meg were sticking close to the line between night and day, favouring the night where they could to help lower the odds of being spotted.

  The first location was a bust, there had been no signs of an enemy base. Just the tips of mountains creeping through the ice. The terrain since had been rocky and uneven, the ground below fighting to make itself known. It has slowed them considerably, whilst mechsuits were designed to operate in any terrain, a benefit of their humanoid form, it wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. A ledge that might perfectly safe for a person to traverse might be useless for a machine that weighed several tons.

  The other points that had been marked were further again, many days travel to the south. Xander silently hoped that wouldn't be necessary, even for an experienced rider the thought of being in a mech cabin for that long made him feel claustrophobic. Xander had thought about ordering Alexi and Anya to scout the other two but
reconsidered. When they found the enemy base there was a good chance they would be spotted in kind. Rapid reinforcements might be required.

  “Be careful, this ridge looks pretty unstable up ahead,” Meg said. Her suit was finding the terrain easier going, a combination of her lower weight and powerful jump jets working to her advantage. Ahead of Meg was the line between night and day, light splashing across the ground.

  “Once we’re over we should have line of sight to the second location.”

  “Let’s hope this is the one, otherwise we’re in for a long, long journey.”

  “Hold up,” Meg said, her suit going into a crouch and tucking itself behind a rock, actually the tip of a hidden mountain. “Movement on the ridge.”

  Xander took up position behind Meg, trying to shield his suit. Ahead of them, the ground rose into a ridge, whilst behind them was a section of open ice. Some way in the direction they had travelled was another ridge, but aside from their lone hiding place, the pair found themselves in an open valley with no cover. A perfect killing field. The simple fact that the ground around them hadn't exploded in a hail of fire told both mercenaries that they hadn’t been spotted. An added benefit of still being under the cover of eternal night.

  “I caught sight of at least two suits, looked like QTs, but there might be more,” Meg said.

  Xander understood what she meant. QT-34s were a common model of mechsuit, ones cheaply produced in mass quantities during the corporate wars. They were the preferred equipment of corporations and terrorists alike.

  “Looks like we’re on the right track,” Xander said. “Think this is a patrol?”

  “That would seem the most likely scenario,” Matthias said. The AI had been mercifully silent for several hours, something Xander was grateful for.

  “Seems like it.”

  “There are three enemy mechs. They are approaching this location,” Matthias said.

  “How do you know that?” Xander said.

  “Just common sense really.” Meg had thought the question was for her, the radio line still open.

  “Their reflection is visible in the ice.” The AI highlighted a section of Xander's vision, in reality, camera footage relayed from his head unit. Matthias was right, there were three suits in total, and they were walking down the ridge towards the hiding mercenaries.

  “There’s three of them coming this way,” Xander said. “They’re heading down the ridge, so whilst we won’t have cover, neither will they. And we have the element of surprise. Can you jam their radios?”

  “Sure thing,” Meg said. Her suit was designed to operate behind enemy lines, so carried a small but effective countermeasures suite. “I’ll start it up just before we engage them, don’t want them getting an early warning.”

  “Their crossing pretty quickly. I can see them reflected in the ice, which means if they’re paying attention, they should be able to see us. We need to act before they do.”

  “On three then?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Xander said. “You take the one on our right, I’ll take the other two.” Xander knew Meg was a good rider, he had seen her in action first-hand. If he was forced to put money on it, he would have bet Meg could take all three of them. Despite that, he was being cautious, ultimately Meg’s Striker wasn’t designed to go toe to toe with another suit.

  “Got it.”

  “Ok, one. Two. Three!”

  The two suits burst out from behind their lone piece of cover. Xander flanked around the rock, firing as he went whilst Meg activated her jets, leaping directly over. The QTs were caught off guard, their formation breaking apart as they scrambled to find cover that didn’t exist.

  Xander’s aim was good, his first salvo crashing into the nearest enemy mechsuit. The rounds didn’t penetrate the armour, but the force of the impact did send the mech stumbling backwards just as its ally opened fire. The friendly burst caught it on the back, where the armour was thinnest to help prevent the reactor overheating. The mech fell to the ice, smoke pouring from the back of it as its reactor failed. The pilot was likely still alive, neutrite reactors were remarkably safe, but the machine was out of the fight.

  Meg soared through the air, her foot pushing off the tip of the rock to give herself more lift. She knew her weapon wasn’t effective against mech armour, but she fired a burst anyway, hoping her opponent wouldn’t know that. The riders employed by Black Rose weren’t experienced, and it showed, her target moving to avoid Meg’s shots. They placed themselves exactly where she wanted them, the multi-ton weight of her mech crashing onto their torso feet first, knocking them to the ground. Trusting that her opponent was stunned by the impact, Meg pulled her field knife free, the energy sheathing the blade glowing orange where it pressed against metal as she pushed it into the centre of the downed mech. A moment later and the blade sunk to the hilt, the resistance of the armour gone. It would be a fatal blow for the rider inside the mech.

  That left just the one enemy, the one who had dropped his comrade. He was Xander’s to deal with and he opened fire, the cannon roaring as it launched shells across the ice. Xander had begun to run to the side as he fired, intending to throw off his enemies aim. It didn’t work as well as he had hoped as one of the rounds fired in response hit his mech. Xander could feel his mech shudder as the hit skipped off the sloped armour of his torso. Surviving as a mercenary took a degree of luck. If that shot had landed at a different angle it could have penetrated the armour and that would have been it for Xander.

  The remaining QT turned and began to run, heading back towards the ridge it had descended.

  “It would be unwise to allow them to escape,” Matthias said. It wasn’t his most helpful tactical advice.

  “I know.” Xander had brought his mech to a stop, taking careful aim with his weapon. The enemy mech had turned away from them, exposing its back. The rider within hadn’t learnt the lesson they should have from their friendly fire experience.

  Xander squeezed the trigger and fired. It was a single shot, not a burst. There was no point in wasting ammo. The enemy mech dropped, the round punching into its weaker rear armour and shredding its reactor.

  “Take care of that mech,” Xander said, pointing to the machine he had just disabled. “I need to check something on this one.”

  Xander could hear the joints of his suit straining as he flipped over the QT that had taken shots to the rear from a supposed ally. He fished under the shoulders, looking for the emergency release for the front plate. He felt the lever slide down, the locks holding the armour into place disconnecting. Xander pulled at the front armour, pulling the heavy slab of metal forward until it was upright relevant to the fallen mech and exposing the cabin inside.

  A quick tug on the cabin door tore the front of it free, revealing the rider within. A fragment of metal had punctured the cabin when they had gotten shot, impaling the person inside. Person was a bit of a stretch, the rider inside was as Xander had expected. They were so pale they were nearly white. Multiple mechanical devices were implanted across their bald head, wetware above and beyond what was needed to pilot a mechsuit.

  “Looks like this is Black Rose alright. Same weird-looking riders in these suits.” Xander stood up, stepping away from the still partly smoking wreck. “We’re going to have to move on this base quickly. If the sound of gunshots and the smoke from this fight don’t give us away, then a patrol not reporting in will.”

  “We might be alright on the smoke. The nightside might make it difficult to see.” Meg was pulling her knife free from the mechsuit Xander had shot. It was harsh, but ensuring the rider died was a necessity if Meg and Xander were to remain stealthy. “I jammed the radio like you asked, so no messages should have gotten out.”

  “Good.” Xander already knew that was the case. Meg was an experienced mercenary and Xander trusted her to do the job properly. “In which case grab the legs of that suit, we'll pull it back towards the other ridge. Hopefully, that should be far enough into the darkness to obscure the sm
oke a little.” The fact there was smoke at all meant that something within the suit was on fire. “Then we better get moving.”

  ***

  It wasn’t what Xander had expected. In his mind, a hidden terrorist base on a barely habitable world should have been one or two buildings at most, maybe a few scattered tents. This was something else entirely, way beyond what anyone could have predicted. It seemed about right, nothing was ever straightforward in an operation, something always went wrong. Either intel was bad, or the enemy didn’t act as expected, it was an inevitable part of warfare. Being able to adapt to the unexpected was what separated good mercenaries from the bad.

  Ahead of them, the ice sloped downwards before evening out for about a mile then rising dramatically in a sheer wall. Nestled within the small valley was a walled area, one that contained a collection of warehouses. What caught the eye was at the far end of that section, the wall running up the vertical ice face. There was a massive door, a huge metal thing that caught the light, an entrance to a much larger facility within the ice itself. Black Rose had burrowed in and from the size of the door, the structure within the ice had to be massive.

  “That’s…not good,” Meg said. She was lying flat at the top of the slope, the cameras on her head unit zooming in on the base. “From here I can see six mechs on the perimeter, four tanks parked up inside the wall, and there are laser turrets along the top.”

  “Plus, whatever is inside that base itself.” Xander was further back than Meg, the video from her cameras relayed to Xander’s suit. It made no sense to expose both the mechs. “We’ll need to deal with those lasers.” The turrets weren’t an issue for mechs or the dropship, both were treated with substances designed to reflect the laser away, but they could be a problem if the Paladins needed to evacuate the prisoners under fire. Laser weapons would make short work of anyone on foot.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. We can reasonably assume that the prisoners are beyond that big door, so we’re going to need to clear out all of these defenders first.”