“Oh crap!” Corsoni now had no time for hesitation. He flicked the controls on his handheld, and the new and not-very-improved Federal Beacon hummed on.
The thing whined at an almost imperceptible pitch, but one that cut through the top range of Corsoni’s hearing like an irate mosquito. And, when he looked at it, he was sure that he could feel the slightest tremor from the Beacon vibrating through the rocks and up through the soles of his feet.
Corsoni was also sure that it wasn’t meant to do that, either.
But, as the small and distant pops of laser light went off in the gathering gloom behind him, accompanied by the distant sound of thunder—no, of cracking and crashing trees perhaps—Joey Corsoni knew that he had no choice. He concentrated on the controls and tried to ignore the fact that it could blow up at any time and probably evaporate him in a millisecond.
“This had better work, Corsoni . . .” he rebuked himself, as he started to broadcast, flicking the Beacon on and off in a repeating pattern.
Dot dot dot. Dash dash dash. Dot dot dot . . .
16
Outnumbered
BOOM! The grenades went off with a flash of fiery light that lit up the underbelly of the mother ship and sent the Exin into disarray, chittering, roaring, screeching with fury.
“Williams!? Williams, is that the signal? You were supposed to attack the War Mechs!” Bruce’s worried voice sounded over Dane’s suit comms.
“Plan changed!” Dane called, snatching the next two grenades and rising from his crouch to throw them with a near-perfect pitcher’s throw to the four feet of the nearest Exin War Mech, which erupted into a storm of light and fury.
“Ssss!” There was hissing and roaring from the Exin around, as Dane turned back to the scenes at the base of the mother ship—to see that three of the warrior Exin had leapt forward, one stumbling a little where it had been hit. They turned backwards and forth quickly to look for the attacker.
“Surprise!” Dane hissed, unlocking his pulse rifle and taking aim. Through a gap between the stampeding feet of the Exin, he caught a glimpse of the giant, greenish-looking egg. He took aim and fired.
“Scrargh!” But Dane did not have time to see if his shot had struck the king egg. Suddenly, two of the four-armed warrior Exin were racing across the ground towards him, holding themselves low like hunting animals as they churned up the forest floor on the rage of their black claws . . .
Oh frack! Dane managed to fire off one shot to take out the leg of one of them before he was leaping into a run. Just as glittering and baleful red lights broke out along the edge of the large Exin War Mech nearby, and it started to turn towards its attacker . . .
With the sound of protesting metal, Dane could see the gigantic servo-mechanisms of its hips starting to move, to turn and lock into place—but the explosions had damaged one of the thing’s legs, and it toppled to one side, slamming violently into the ground with a spray of dirt and alien grass. It was still alive, Dane thought—but it wasn’t going anywhere fast, and it lay between him and the approaching Exin warriors . . .
“Result!” Dane shouted as he lengthened his stride back up the dry creek bed and shot into the dark forest.
“Don’t be so quick about that! The other two War Mechs are activating!” Dane heard Bruce roar. His anger was perhaps well-placed, as the plan had been to cause a serious disturbance between them, to create chaos by having multiple attackers (well, him and Dane) from multiple angles, causing confusion and chaos before eventually putting stage two into action . . .
Right now, stage two seemed to consist of not much confusion and chaos at all. The entire Exin landing party seemed intent on killing Dane.
Dane jumped over one giant tree root that had been in his path, his metal boots hitting the forest floor on the other side and skidding. He ignited the twin rockets of the pulse thrusters on his back for a microsecond burst. In response, he was thrown forward, raising his knees in a long, plunging leap that broke and snapped the vines that were in his way.
“Uuf!” He hit the floor with a skittering roll, jumping up once more and turning this time, crossing back to bound forward once, twice—and then fire the rockets once again. He flung himself past several trunks of the gigantic, breathing trees far faster than he could have ever run in real life. This time, when he landed, he did so awkwardly, half twisting on one foot, and were it not for the sudden clamping supports around his ankle and calf as his Assisted Mechanized Plate reacted, he was sure that he would have broken it.
But he hit the floor in a spray of dirt and tumbled, turning over and over through the leaf litter.
>Suit impact! Right arm 80% . . .
>Suit impact! Backplate 75% . . .
His suit’s warning signs clanged and clamored in his ears as the outer defensive plates crumpled, but Dane knew that was what they were designed to do. They were like the crumple zone for the tough metal alloys beneath . . .
When he stopped rolling, Dane realized that it was suddenly quiet. There was a muted sound of thunder, but that appeared to be far away and distant. Had he managed to lose his pursuers?
Yes! No! Dammit! Dane felt the contradictory rush of relief and dismay at this. The plan was to lead them away from their landing site, to break their formation, and to keep them distracted until the Deployment Gate opened once again.
And hope that Corsoni, on the much larger Gladius, had actually managed to get the Federal Beacon working again before the time that the Deployment Gate was scheduled to open. To maybe get a message through to home space before they sent anyone else to the slaughter . . . His eyes checked the time.
>Deployment Gate scheduled opening . . . T-minus 00.19.42 . . .
“Dammit.” If Corsoni hadn’t managed to get the Beacon working by now, then it didn’t look like it would happen.
“And if I’ve lost the Exin—then what’s the point!?” Dane snarled, pushing himself up and looking back around. Where were they?
“Sckrargh!” With a chittering snarl, Dane was answered.
Dane just had time to drop his pulse rifle and draw the spare Field Blade he had picked up on the Gladius as the first of the four-armed Exin warriors launched themselves at him.
“Augh!”
With a grunt, Dane swung the blade low, catching the first Exin across one arm and feeling it crumple into scale and bite flesh as he was bowled over to the forest floor. The creature was still alive, throwing a claw—
>Suit impact! Faceplate 75% . . .
That skittered across his head as he turned, kicking the thing off him.
“Sckrargh!” He might have kicked one of them off, but suddenly there was another of the four-armed Exin warrior creatures leaping at him.
>Suit impact! Right arm 55% . . .
It threw two clawed hands to slash at him, and Dane barely managed to get one arm up in time to see sparks as they rent the metal—and Dane was kicking himself back, rolling under one of the giant tree trunk roots to the other side.
Smash! The root took a powerful strike that sent splinters wide and fractures that shivered far along its bough, as Dane sprang up from the other side and swung his Field Blade once again. This time, his blade caught the Exin that had jumped atop the root and threw it to the floor with a furious cry.
Dane jumped up onto the giant root himself, intending to vault forward and onto the next—but he had no time. The injured Exin was doing just as he had done, swiping at his legs as it crowded him. He caught the blow with the flat of his blade and jabbed back, for the already wounded Exin to skitter out of reach and then dart forward for a returning swipe.
“Williams!” he heard Bruce call over the suit communicator, clearly abandoning the mission protocol and discarding his suit’s stealth mode.
“I’m still alive!” Dane shouted back as he jabbed and parried at his enemy. Even though Dane had the height advantage where he was, the alien was fast. Very fast. It lunged forward and back out of range as if it were teasing him, but each time delivered
a withering scrape or tear across his legs, further fraying the defensive plate that sat there. It was only a matter of time before the alien managed to tear through the plate entirely, and then its claws would be sinking into his flesh.
Not a prospect that Dane wanted in the best of times.
High to one side of him was a branch, wide and with enough room for Dane to stand on, even in his orbital AMP suit. He gave the Exin warrior below him one final sweep of his blade, sending it skittering back as he leapt—activating his back thrusters as he did so—rising into the air to catch onto the tree limb and swing himself up to his feet.
“Ha! Bet you didn’t know I could do that!” Dane leered at the creature below, which in turn, abruptly leapt the gap between forest floor and tree branch in one smooth motion. There was an answering snarl as the third Exin warrior came bounding into the clearing below . . .
“Frack!” Dane slashed at the four-armed creature before him, which merely ducked and dodged the strikes with an almost supernatural skill and clear calm. It slowly edged towards him with a predatory grace as it made a low, menacing chuckle.
Frack this, Dane amended, as the third Exin jumped for the trunk of the tree to join its fellow. He leapt and fired his back thrusters once again, reaching higher this time as the Exin attempted to follow him upwards.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dane swung on one branch and threw himself up to the next, firing microbursts from the pulse thrusters on his back every time, but the Exin were always just one snapping maw behind him. It was almost like they were perfectly adapted to this environment, with their four arms and two legs, so they could always be grabbing onto a claw hold while at the same time trying to eviscerate Dane.
Of course, they are perfectly adapted to this environment, the rather unhelpful thought flashed through Dane’s head as he climbed. This is their environment.
But Dane’s legs and arms were getting inordinately tired. And he didn’t know just how much reserve battery power he had in his pulse thrusters before they finally gave out on him. Would he end up being stuck up one of these giant trees as the entire Exin attack colony flooded him from below? That had not been a part of the rather brilliant and very poorly executed plan.
Lead them back to the Expedition Base Camp. That was what we agreed we had to do . . .
Dane scrambled to his last hold. Instead of immediately jumping off for another, he snatched up his pulse pistol from his belt in one free hand, turned, and—
As the nearest Exin jumped to scrabble up the rugged trunk towards him, Dane fired down at it in three fast, quick reports. Pulse fire singed the air and sent the creature tumbling back down towards the ground with a pained and startled cry. Dane wasn’t sure that it would die, even at this great height, but he reckoned that it would sure give them second thoughts before they followed him again!
Now for the other one . . . Dane thought—just as the canopy around him broke, and one of the giant Exin War Mechs crashed into his clearing.
17
War Mech
The Exin War Mech tore aside the limbs of hundred-year-old alien trees as it reached for Dane. The sergeant was crouching on the tree branch, staring down at its carapace as it reared up on its back legs, sweeping one giant mechanical arm straight for him.
He had a split second to see it flash through the air, trailing vines and branches, before it struck.
Dane leapt.
The tree that had been his harbor exploded into fragments as Dane tumbled through the air, everything whirling in a flash of muted browns, blacks, and greens—matched with the flashing neon warning greens of his heads-up display.
>Suit impact! Backplate 35% . . .
Dane felt the crunch of the defensive outer plates on his back as he slammed into the hardened metals of the Exin War Mech, and he was sliding, scrabbling for purchase across its roof.
“Agh!” With a flare of his arms, he managed to catch onto some solid edge of the thing. For a second, Dane was hanging in the air between the edge of the creature’s body and its forearm as it plunged its forward arms back towards the ground.
Frack! The impact of the creature’s arms against the ground threw him up into the air once more, this time not so far or high, so that when he slammed back down onto the War Mech’s back, he managed not to crumple any more of his suit this time. But he still had to scramble to catch onto the edge of the metal monster before being flung to the ground.
What the frack am I doing!? Dane had one, perfect crystalline moment of wondering why he was on top of a metal creature causing mayhem in the middle of an alien forest, with no doubt, many more Exin warriors about to surround him.
>Warning! Weapons system detected! . . .
Dane saw something move out of the corner of his eye. It was one of the weapons modules on the Mech’s shoulder—a large tube on spinning servos. As Dane’s eyes found it, he heard it whine into power. Flaring purple light streaked along its opening mouth.
“Urk!” Dane let go of the thing’s side. He slid backwards as three beams of purple light shot past him, just inches away.
With a snarl, he flung his arms out to grab at the weapon system servos, hanging onto its base as the creature vainly attempted to swivel around to find him.
“Oh no, you don’t . . .” Dane bucked forward, bracing his knees against the War Mech’s shell and seizing the weapon turret. He started to push.
>Warning! Approaching Assisted Mechanized Plate maximum output! . . .
On the inside of Dane’s faceplate, multiple warnings started to sound as the interior architecture of Dane’s suit tried to lock into maximum effect, increasing his already enhanced strength tenfold, twentyfold . . .
But it was still a big ask, to rip a solid-mounted piece of alien engineering from its mount. He could see the warning counter steadily climb upwards as he threatened to overload either his internal suit reactor or break the mechanisms in his suit.
“Argh!” He could feel the pain erupt down his arms and back. Even his suit could not guard him from the worst of it. But the weapons module was budging, moving with a dreadful squeal . . .
And, with a dreadful clank, something suddenly broke inside of it, a bearing or whatever the alien equivalent was, and Dane was pushing the weapon down to point towards the carapace of the War Mech itself.
One final thing. He leaned over the weapon, using all of his weight to hold it in place as he released one hand and waved it in front of the muzzle of the gun. He hoped that the Exin were advanced enough to design the thing with automatic target detection.
Dane was lucky. The Exin had, and the triple beams of purple light shot forward along the barrel to erupt from the thing’s mouth and slam into the head of the War Mech. There was a deafening sound like a crack of thunder and a shower of sparks that spattered Dane and the forest with liquid fire (setting off more suit alarms, but thankfully, not making it through his suit).
The Exin War Mech lurched forward one step, then wavered back and forth in place, before toppling forwards—
“Whoa!” Dane saw the forest floor rushing towards him as he fell with the War Mech. He hesitated for a moment, then jumped, rolling through the air to thud across the dirt and leaf-litter floor.
>Suit impact! Backplate 25% . . .
“Ugh . . .” Dane lay there for a moment, feeling the ground underneath him still trembling from the War Mech’s crash. He tried to gather his breath.
“Sssckrargh!” The last of the four-armed Exin warriors jumped forward towards him, raising its larger arms to rend him in two. Dane had no weapons any more. He had lost his Field Blade and his pistol, and his pulse rifle was still lying on the ground somewhere—probably underneath the smoking War Mech . . .
Dane tried to move, but he was too slow.
The four-armed Exin warrior pounced—but before it could land on Dane’s chest, surely killing him—it was blasted from the air by a bolt of pristine yellow-white energy fire.
“Sckrekh!”
“What!?”
Dane muttered, trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Dear fracking heavens, Williams.” Bruce came running out of the eaves of the forest, his own pulse rifle still glowing from the blast. “I can’t leave you alone for one minute! Now, get up—I’ve got an entire Exin landing party on my tail!”
And Sergeant Bruce Cheng wasn’t wrong. Dane heard the chittering shrieks of fury ringing through the jungle behind the Orbital Marine, and the air was burnt by the thrown flashes of purple laser fire.
“Now run!” Bruce yelled.
18
Final Countdown
>T-minus 00.00.18 . . .
“Scout ship Lancet, are you ready?” The words of the senior flight coordinator sounded tinny as they came through the overhead speakers of the small scout ship.
The Lancet was in position directly in front of Deployment Gate One, whose wheel was starting to revolve in ever faster motion. Lightning flashes sparked and played across the spokes.
The pilot of the small ship was nervous. This was the first time that he (and the Lancet, to be fair) had been through the small man-made wormhole of the Deployment Gate.
“You got this, Michael,” said Senior Science Officer Sarah Hughes, who sat just a little behind him in the cockpit of the Lancet and who was older than the younger expedition officer.
“Why aren’t they sending in the Marines!?” the pilot, Michael, whispered. He had been a pilot for the Mars colony, strictly a courier, nuts-and-bolts kind of guy who signed up on a seven-year contract, not realizing that he would be forwarded to this as an urgent reassignment. Space pilots, and those with expertise in humanity’s space fleet, were a rare commodity at the moment.
Metal Warrior: Precious Metal (Mech Fighter Book 5) Page 11