by Isaac Hooke
Battle Harem
Book Three
Isaac Hooke
Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.IsaacHooke.com
Books by Isaac Hooke
Military Science Fiction
Battle Harem
Battle Harem 1
Battle Harem 2
Battle Harem 3
AI Reborn Trilogy
Refurbished
Reloaded
Rebooted
ATLAS Trilogy
(published by 47North)
ATLAS
ATLAS 2
ATLAS 3
Alien War Trilogy
Hoplite
Zeus
Titan
Argonauts
Bug Hunt
You Are Prey
Alien Empress
Quantum Predation
Robot Dust Bunnies
City of Phants
Rade’s Fury
Mechs vs. Dinosaurs
A Captain's Crucible
Flagship
Test of Mettle
Cradle of War
Planet Killer
Worlds at War
Space Opera
Star Warrior Quadrilogy
Star Warrior
Bender of Worlds
He Who Crosses Death
Doom Wielder
Science Fiction
The Forever Gate Series
The Dream
A Second Chance
The Mirror Breaks
They Have Wakened Death
I Have Seen Forever
Rebirth
Walls of Steel
The Pendulum Swings
The Last Stand
Thrillers
The Ethan Galaal Series
Clandestine
A Cold Day in Mosul
Terminal Phase
Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Afterword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
In Closing
1
Jason stepped back as Xin spun toward him. Her eyes flared brightly, warning him of the impending attack. He managed to amp up his Bullet Time and duck just as she released her lethal plasma beam. It struck the outside of his chest in a glancing blow, melting some of the armor there, but he avoided most of the blast as he hit the ground.
Beside Xin, Aria also turned her lightning weapon on him at the same time and struck his upper arm with a powerful bolt. It tore into the slug processing compartment of his left bicep, drilling a hole right through, emptying all of the pre-processed slugs in the process and disabling the weapon.
Sophie, Tara and Lori immediately interceded. Sophie activated her jumpjets and leaped on Aria; her micro machines, shaped like a hammer, slammed into Aria at the same time. Tara materialized in front of Xin and swung her sword, forcing Xin to deactivate her beam and dodge the blow. Lori released plasma bolts at Xin as well.
Jason used the distraction to scramble to his feet and get his bearings.
The mechs of the new girls, Cheyanne, Maeran, and Iris, stood in place meanwhile, as if unsure of what to do. They had been hanging out with Aria and Xin, along with all the other girls, each night in VR, so they probably considered the two of them friends by now. But they had also agreed to follow Jason, since he had set them free of Bokerov. He didn’t blame them for not knowing whose side to take.
“We can’t let you betray humanity!” Aria transmitted. “By joining the Tyrnari!”
“I only plan to join them for a little while!” Jason said. “We’ll eventually turn on them.” He told her that mostly to placate her, because in truth he still wasn’t precisely certain what he wanted to do when it came to the invaders, other than avoid fighting them.
“And how long is a little while?” Aria said, blocking the next attack from Sophie with her ballistic shield. “After the alien army has marched across the world, with you at their side?”
“No!” Jason said. He ducked a lightning bolt attack that Aria unleashed from the side of her shield. “Of course not. I just want to buy us some time!” He gestured toward the massive army emerging through the rift in front of him. “We can’t fight this.”
“Can’t we?” Aria said. Sophie scored a hit with her micro machines, digging into Aria’s side. She swung her shield to the left, cutting off the successive flow of the machines, exposing her flank to Jason’s energy weapon. But he couldn’t bring himself to fire.
“I told you, you must lead them with an iron will,” Bokerov commented over the comm band. “They only respond to dominance. See what happens when you show weakness?”
“Lori, please tell me you can shut them down remotely with those hacking skills of yours,” Jason said.
“No,” Lori said. “I unfortunately showed them all the vulnerabilities in their codebases. They’ve patched them. I could look for some zero day backdoors, but that could take quite a while.”
Aria smashed her shield into Sophie, knocking her mech to the ground. Xin meanwhile had broken away from Lori and Tara, and she leaped toward Jason, superheating her hull in the process. She revolved in mid leap, spinning rapidly until she became that living drill she was so fond of forming.
Jason tried to leap aside in Bullet Time, but he was going to take at least a glancing hit, if not worse.
But then Maeran intervened. Or rather, her drones. She sent them forward in a triangular pattern in front of him, with a force field of energy between them.
Xin hit the shield that had formed in front of him, and her mech bounced away harmlessly.
Aria broke free of Sophie, and turned her lightning bolt weapon on Jason.
Before she could fire, energy whips shot out from Iris’s locust mech, and wrapped around the weapon. She’d obviously dialed down the power output of those whips, because Jason had seen them cut through metal, and right now they simply held the weapon fast. Iris yanked on the whips and redirected the muzzle so that the lightning bolt passed just over Jason’s head.
It looked like the new girls had chosen their side.
That pleased him immensely.
During all of this, the Tyrnari troops and vessels emerging from the rift ignored the fighting. Some of them passed within only a few hundred meters, as the forefront of the Tyrnari army moved in front of the vanguard of Jason’s own. Apparently the aliens weren’t too surprised that the Bokerovs would be fighting amongst themselves.
Aria tugged at her lightning weapon, trying to break free of Iris’ whips. Lori came up behind Aria, and wrapped her arms around her chest, further subduing her.
Sophie and Tara meanwhile grabbed Xin, and kept her from pointing those plasma beams at Jason.
Meanwhile, the other Arias and Xins weren’t interfering, and remained quiet. Jason’s own clones seemed better at managing the women than himself. He’d have to as
k them what their secret was.
Wait a moment, not so fast.
Aria 2 and Xin 2, as well as Aria 3 and Xin 3, were subdued at the moment by other members of their respective War Forgers. Only Jerry and Julian had kept their teams under control.
Well, good for them.
Aria suddenly stopped struggling. She gazed at the Tyrnari troops passing by behind her and cocked her head. “You know what, let’s talk this out.”
“Good choice,” Jason said.
“I can’t think with the buzzing of these energy whips…” Aria said.
“Iris, let her go,” Jason said. “Lori, keep her restrained for—”
Iris’ whips went slack, and before Jason could finish, Aria smashed Lori away from her. At the same time, Xin broke free of Sophie and Tara, and together the two of them ran toward the closest group of Tyrnari. Aria and Xin emitted friendly signatures just like everyone else, so of course the Tyrnari did nothing as they closed.
“Damn it!” Jason said. “Stop them!”
But it was already too late: Aria and Xin were already firing upon the alien troops.
Jason aimed his energy weapon at Aria, but once again couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. Bokerov didn’t have any such qualms, however, and began unleashing plasma bolts and missiles their way.
Evading, Aria and Xin dove into the heart of the alien troops, causing some of those bolts and missiles to strike the Tyrnari.
“Bokerov, tell the aliens we’re having a minor malfunction with some of our units!” Jason said.
Aria and Xin had entered a group of Phaser mechs, who turned to face them.
Meanwhile, other troops began to mobilize. On his overhead map, Jason saw flashes appearing all throughout his ranks, indicating where members of Bokerov’s army were taking fire.
It was too late.
Bokerov confirmed as much. “They’ve stopped answering my communications. Most likely, they’re thrilled about this… I’m certain they were looking for an opportunity to renege on their agreement to give me their technology. And now, thanks to your undisciplined harem, you’ve given them one.”
The Phaser mechs produced swords that launched lightning bolts. A circular red outline appeared over Jason, marking the target zone of one of those weapons, and he dove to the side as a huge lightning bolt tore through the air where he had stood.
Some of those Phasers were equipped with rocket launchers. Jason’s missile alarm activated, and he fired his Battle Cloak countermeasure, detonating several of the munitions early. When they exploded, the missiles left behind floating, amorphous black blobs in the air. Those blobs moved outward, seeking out different members of Bokerov’s army. Jason watched as a tank was enveloped, and the mass seemed to harden, freezing the tank in place. A lightning bolt struck it a moment later, and the entire black mass shattered into a thousand pieces.
Artillery units in another regiment behind the Phasers began to lob shells. These artillery were white in color, and egg-shaped, floating a meter off the ground. They had small rectangular sections protruding from the top, with small dark circles indicating the weapons those rectangles were armed with. Like the other alien units, there was one circle each for plasma, laser, and energy attacks, and a fourth for the particular brand of shells the aliens utilized.
When those shells hit the ground, there was no explosion, but rather everything within a sphere five meters in diameter utterly disintegrated. Holes in the shape of perfect half-spheres were left behind in the ground, replacing the units that had once stood there.
“It’s time to fight, War Forgers!” Jason said. He released several missiles. “Fire at will! Bokerov, engage! I hope you’re happy now, Aria!”
“I am,” Aria said.
“I always intended to fight, but not like this,” Jason said. “You forced my hand early.”
“Finally, I did something right.” Aria was firing at the Phasers, along with Xin. They coordinated their attacks: Xin would release a weak plasma beam, causing a Phaser to wink out. And Aria would time her lightning bolt release to coincide with the Phaser’s return to this reality.
“We could have engaged in guerrilla warfare, wearing them down over the coming weeks, but no, you had to go and attack them outright!” Jason said. “I tried to ensure we had a chance. But now look at us. Because of your reckless actions, you’ve endangered not just our army, but our entire world. We’re on the losing side of a pitched battle. Badly outnumbered. With nowhere to run.”
Aria didn’t answer.
Well, there was no point in whining about it any further. What was done, was done.
It was time to fight.
Overhead, Bokerov’s bombers made several flybys, and unleashed carpet bombs at enemy units.
Those bombs that targeted the Phasers were well-timed: the first bomb would hit, and there would be a one point two-five second delay before the second bomb impacted, coinciding with the reappearance of the Phasers.
Some of the alien flyers accelerated to engage the bombers. Equipped with plasma, energy, and laser weapons, these were the elliptical vessels that Jason and his team had encountered previously. The craft didn’t seem to be affected by the limitations of gravity.
Bokerov dispatched some fighter jets to deal with them in turn.
Several towering airships turned toward the army. They looked like big, rectangular things, with slightly curved fronts. Like the flyers, they seemed unaffected by the laws of physics, at least when it came to maneuvering.
“Bokerov, move your Cataphracts into place!” Jason said.
The Axeman and Horse moved forward. The Axeman swung at one of those big ships, and cut it in half. The Horse, meanwhile, fired its energy beam into another ship, carving a huge hole.
But other nearby ships returned fire. The Axeman’s right arm was hit with an energy blast, and the entire limb disintegrated. The Horse took several concentrated blows, riddling its body with craters. The big mech collapsed.
Bokerov’s artillery were unleashing shells against the artillery units beyond the Phasers, while his tanks were firing lasers and plasma bolts at the big ships, which seemed the biggest threat at the moment.
“Aria, Xin, can I count on you to combine?” Jason asked.
No answer.
He couldn’t just issue the combine command, and expect it to work. All of the mechs had to submit to the combination process, because it involved linking minds. Which was why he couldn’t just combine earlier to get Aria and Xin under control.
“Aria—” Jason pressed.
“We’ll combine,” Aria said.
“All right, War Forgers, and clones,” Jason said. “Combine!”
Jason switched to VR where the five girls were already waiting. They held hands in a circle, with Lori and Tara leaving a spot between them for him.
Jason went to them, held their palms, and accepted the energy pulses that they fed into his body. When those pulses reached his mind, his perception changed so that he was viewing the interlocking of all their neural networks and sharing all their memories, and their deepest, darkest secrets. He never knew them as well as he did when he was here. Unfortunately, most of that knowledge was lost when they separated, with only vague echoes remaining.
His vision returned to the real world, and the six mechs ran toward each other. Aria became the chest. Jason the head. Tara his right arm. Sophie his left arm. Lori his left leg. Xin his right leg. Weapons and body parts repositioned upon tracks. Aria’s ballistic shield, Tara’s sword, and Lori’s tail all enlarged, with help from Sophie’s micro machines.
And then it was done. Jason had become a Cataphract. Beside him stood the other four Cataphracts of the clones, and Bokerov’s non-combining Cataphracts.
The Rex Wolves howled on the ground beside him. Though they had grown in recent weeks, now they were back to the size of dogs, given his current height.
Jason dashed forward, leading the charge. He trampled the smaller troops underfoot; and waded through
the larger Phasers. He easily deflected their attacks with his huge ballistic shield, and swung back with his sword. If the Phasers winked out, he’d continue onward, leaving them for the other Cataphracts and Rex Wolves behind him to finish off.
He approached one of the big hovering ships. While on the run, he fired the plasma beam from his right hip, the energy weapon on his right shoulder, plasma bolts from his tail, and lightning bolts from his left arm.
The rectangular ship shuddered under the blows, with portions of it falling away; Jason was close enough now to finish the job with his sword, so he swung the big blade, slicing right through the transport ship. The twin pieces dropped to the ground, revealing different decks inside like the insides of a doll house. Yellow mist vented outward as its atmosphere leaked.
The nearby rectangular ships were rotating his way, and he swiveled his ballistic shield in front of him as they returned fire.
The other Cataphracts, both the War Forgers and Bokerov versions, engaged different enemies, including those rectangular ships, though some of the Cataphracts were bogged down by the smaller troops that surrounded them. Bokerov did his best to use his own small troops to defend against the latter.