The bullets clinked off of it like pebbles thrown at a tin roof, and the colossus turned, pausing momentarily before firing on her.
By that time, she’d already swung the hoverbike around and was accelerating in the opposite direction while firing blindly over her shoulder.
She heard the mech crashing after her through the woods, and then came the throaty roar of a rocket leaving a launch tube.
Tessa accelerated, and the rocket exploded just a few meters behind her, bathing her back in heat.
She fired back at the thing again, and sped on, astonished at how much speed was required to stay ahead of the mech.
Chapter 9
Rent and Torn
Gabe crept through the undergrowth, keeping an eye not just on the ground ahead but also on his fellow soldiers, who were spread out to both sides of him, advancing through the woods in a staggered line.
If they react, there’s something coming.
His skin tingled in anticipation of the coming engagement, in a way it never had back in the Milky Way’s Bastion Sector.
This sensation was totally new. They had no idea what the enemy’s capabilities were, and so today would likely demand every ounce of skill and tactical knowledge he possessed.
Ahead, the terrain grew brighter, meaning they were approaching the edge of the woods and would soon emerge.
“Easy,” Commander Bronson said over the wide channel, to all three platoons he commanded. “Don’t leave the cover of the woods. Our target approaches.”
It was true. Gabe could hear it crashing across the terrain, and he could feel it, too—the tremors it sent through the earth with each footstep.
Something caught his eye, far to the right, and he looked, staring hard before it vanished.
“What is it, Roach?” Price said from his position to Gabe’s left. He was staring at Gabe. “What do you see?”
“Could have sworn I just saw the ass end of a hoverbike disappear into the woods, a few hundred meters to our three o’clock.”
Price chuckled. “Hallucinating now, are you? There’s no way someone would be this far out unless they were surrounded by soldiers, like us. Not with all the nasty surprises Eresos seems to have for us.”
“Like that mech approaching across the plain? Why don’t you focus on that, Price, before it puts a rocket up your ass?”
Bronson’s voice cut through their squabbling, coming in over the wide channel: “Kilo Platoon is in position. They’re about to hit that thing with mortars. The moment the first one falls, I want Sierra and Bravo Platoons to advance out of the woods, firing steadily, spreading out to get a nice broad arc, and hitting it with everything we have. Small-to-medium arms fire first, to get its attention. Then, rocket launchers. By the time it recovers from that, our heavy guns should be set up on our flanks. I expect this to be short and sweet, people.”
Without further preamble, the mortars from Kilo Platoon began to fly. Many of the shots missed, but a lot of them hit, causing explosions to blossom on the large mech. It teetered a little, stopped, and turned.
The soldiers had begun calling the mech an Ambler, for the slow, inexorable way it walked. Gabe supposed it fit.
As the Ambler moved to engage the mortar teams, Sierra and Bravo platoon opened fire, peppering the mech all across its back.
Now that the smoke from the mortar explosions had cleared, Gabe could see the Ambler had taken very little damage, if any.
This fight might prove harder than we thought.
Rockets flew, next, once again knocking the mech off-balance. It staggered before righting itself and turning to fire on Sierra and Bravo.
Its accuracy was eerie. Three of the eight soldiers carrying rocket launchers were taken down by the mech’s autocannons, which then continued to sweep the Darkstream ranks, neutralizing soldiers at an alarming rate.
A few of the higher-ranking soldiers drove hoverbikes, and now most of them veered wildly, struggling to get away from the Ambler’s line of fire.
Gabe ran forward to grab a rocket launcher whose operator had fallen, hoisted the weapon onto his shoulder, and fired at the mech. When he ran out of rockets, he reloaded from the case the dead rocket man had carried.
But from this range, the rockets didn’t seem to be having the desired effect.
Then, the Ambler managed to shoot a hoverbike driver, causing the vehicle to careen through Sierra Platoon—Gabe’s platoon. It took out two men and one woman before the other soldiers in its path realized what was happening. They sprinted out of the way.
The bike came to a stop near Gabe, who walked over to the driver, slumped over the console.
Setting down the rocket launcher, he dragged the man off of the vehicle, unceremoniously depositing him on the ground.
“Sorry, friend,” he said to the corpse as he hauled the launcher onto the bike so that it rested between his legs. He sped toward the metal colossus.
He refrained from firing, at first, and the Ambler didn’t seem to notice his approach, having turned to fire on the mortar teams again.
That was good, because it took some time for Gabe to remember how to properly handle one of these damn bikes. He tried not to think about the fact that, in a few seconds, he’d need to drive it one-handed while firing a heavy rocket launcher from his shoulder.
Good thing I’ve been working out.
The Ambler noticed him when he was around three dozen meters away, turning twin rotary autocannons toward the hoverbike.
Now seems like a good time.
Gabe released the hoverbike’s handlebars, heaved the launcher onto his shoulder, steadied it, and fired two rockets right into what he chose to consider the Ambler’s groin.
That seemed to get its attention. It stumbled sideways as Gabe fishtailed around it, and heavy ordnance tore up the ground just behind the hoverbike.
That would have ripped through my body if I hadn’t fired when I did. The thought wasn’t the most comforting thing that had passed through his head this week.
Knowing two rockets remained in the launcher, he fired them both, hoping to knock the mech off its feet. It stumbled, coming dangerously close to losing its footing, but it managed to steady itself.
Gabe had no rockets left, and he was now totally exposed to the beast. He decided to head straight for the thing, hoping that would put him too close for it to fire on him.
Three more mortars from Kilo Platoon hit the Ambler in quick succession. This close, Gabe could see that the machine had actually taken a fair amount of damage—it was dented and singed in several places.
His eyes chanced upon a brace of grenades strapped to the side of the bike. As he closed with the Ambler, he ripped one of them off, pulled out the pin with his teeth, then cooked it.
Just as he was passing between the thing’s massive legs, he flung it upward as hard as he could.
The clink of the grenade hitting the inside of the Ambler’s thigh was followed by the explosion, along with the sound of metal being rent and torn.
The shockwave threw Gabe off his bike, but he managed to hit the ground running.
A glance over his shoulder told him the mech was coming down—right on top of him. He veered to the left, then dove.
The Ambler crashed to the ground just a few feet away from him. More mortars were sailing through the air, and Gabe forced himself up to keep running away.
“You can stop fleeing, Roach,” Bronson said over the com. “You’re safe.”
Stumbling to a halt, Gabe turned to see that the Ambler had been converted into a charred, smoking wreck.
“That was absolutely insane, Seaman,” Bronson went on.
This time, Bronson’s voice didn’t come over the radio. The commander now stood several meters to Roach’s right.
The man moves fast. Commander Bronson must have jogged, to reach him so quickly—he certainly hadn’t been keeping to the front of the platoons during the battle.
Coming to attention, Gabe snapped off a salute. “Sorry,
sir. I just followed my gut.”
“Your gut had the right of it. Many more soldiers would have died today, if you hadn’t done what you just did. You’re spec ops, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going to have to make better use of you, going forward. In fact, we’ll start right now. I want you to be the one to fire on the Quatro caves. Come with me.”
Ten minutes later, Gabe was hoisting a thermobaric grenade launcher onto his shoulder. He dropped to one knee, lining up the arc of his shot with care. He really didn’t want to mess this up. Not with Darkstream troops milling all around the area, making sure no Quatro escaped.
“Careful, son,” Bronson said, behind him and somewhere to the left. “That’s a fuel-air explosive you’re about to deploy.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve fired them many times before, back in the Bastion Sector. I know the risks.”
“Good. We want to set the air they’re breathing on fire, not ours,” Bronson said with a chuckle. “Are you ready?”
I think so. “Yes, sir.”
“Then fire.”
Gabe did, angling the launcher upward, bracing for the kickback, and pulling the trigger. The grenade left the launcher’s tube with a whoosh. He watched it arc toward the mouth of the cave system where this group of Quatro had made their home.
“Right on the money,” Bronson said. “Hit them again.”
Chapter 10
Hold Your Fire
Bronson had Gabe bomb the Quatro caves for almost a half hour. After that, they waited around for another hour to see whether anything emerged.
I wonder how far underground the tunnels extend.
If they were small enough, then the Quatro had probably all died within the first ten minutes. But considering this appeared to be a permanent dwelling for them, Gabe thought it likely that they’d chosen a more extensive cave system than that.
It would probably be better for them if they’d all died. After the fuel air grenades had finished converting their home into fire, and the shockwave tore through the confined space, any alien who hadn’t simply been incinerated would have caught fire.
If they’d been far enough away, some Quatro might have only suffered internal injuries—concussions, burst ear drums, ruptured lungs, blindness.
Gabe didn’t want to think about any of that, but he couldn’t help it.
It needed to be done. It was us or them. They attacked us, when we’d done nothing wrong.
The Quatro had loosed their giant mech on them. That couldn’t be forgiven. Bronson had been right to order this assault, to prevent any more human death.
Thermobaric weapons had been controversial for use on humans, back in the Milky Way, even though they’d been employed widely throughout the Bastion Sector.
For use on aliens who’d attacked humanity first…
It’s justified. Isn’t it?
“Look.” It was Tessa Notaras, standing nearby and pointing at the cave mouth. Near her, Peter Price stood, clutching his rifle.
Gabe followed the gesture and saw that, incredibly, something was dragging itself out of the ground.
“It’s a Quatro,” Price said.
And it was. The alien was charred mostly black, instead of its original royal purple. In places, it had no fur left at all.
It seemed to be dragging its hind legs across the ground as it labored toward the soldiers, many of who raised their guns to sight along the barrels at it.
“Hold your fire,” Bronson said. “See what it does.”
“Sir…” Gabe said. “We should…shouldn’t we put it out of its misery?”
Bronson turned a hard stare toward him. “It’s the enemy, Roach. It killed your brothers and sisters, and it would claw you to pieces in a heart beat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then, without warning, more Quatro emerged from the tunnel, some of them singed, and some of them virtually unmarked—though of course, they might have had internal injuries.
They all gathered near the cave mouth, around fifty of them, assuming a formation similar to the one they’d adopted on the day the Quatro had submitted to Darkstream soldiers.
Tessa spoke: “Are they—”
The Quatro charged.
The tremors created by their approach grew stronger with every second, and Gabe could already make out the wicked snarls that twisted their faces.
“Shoot, damn you!” Bronson managed to get out. “Shoot—shoot them all!”
What was left of Sierra, Kilo, and Bravo platoons—ninety-one soldiers in all—opened fire on the enormous aliens.
“Aim for the heads!” Bronson yelled.
At first, the soldiers’ bullets didn’t seem to have very much effect. Then, as the soldiers focus-fired on the lead Quatro, with rockets and mortar fire added to the deadly mix, the beasts began to go down, one by one.
If the Quatro hadn’t already been injured from the fuel air explosive barrage, Gabe didn’t think he and the others would have been able to stop them in time.
As it was, a slaughter ensued, and the last Quatro to fall did so mere feet from the front rank.
Even then, the shooting didn’t stop—the soldiers continued to send spray after spray of bullets into the Quatro bodies, to ensure they stayed down. After nearly two minutes of that, Bronson raised his hand, and they did stop, then.
The commander marched through the soldiers, coming to a halt at the nearest Quatro. Kicking it to ensure it was dead, Bronson lifted his foot and placed it atop the thing’s paw.
“Excellent work, everyone. But know that this is only the beginning. We have an entire region to clear, and we have two million people who are waiting for us to do it, so that they can have somewhere to live other than a spaceship. We cannot afford to take our time, here. Our supplies will only last so long—we need to settle here, grow food, and find peace. But before peace, there must be war. That war has only just begun.”
The victorious Darkstream soldiers raised their guns into the air and cheered. One of them fired toward the horizon, until Bronson made a cutting gesture across his throat, since that was a highly dangerous thing to do.
For some reason, Gabe didn’t feel like joining in with the cheering. He merely stood there, instead, with his hands at his sides.
Epilogue
Not Gods but Devils
18 Months Later
They were calling it Valhalla Station.
Gabe’s footsteps echoed against the thin steel of the temporary corridors. The part he walked through was supposed to be the Core, even though it was the only part of the station that yet existed.
Apparently, the board of directors planned for Valhalla to expand into four massive quadrants, and the builders and their robots were hard at work to make that happen.
For now, the Core was divided into dozens of sections, each with a specific function.
Gabe was currently entering the psychiatric wing of sick bay.
There, he found Peter Price, by himself in a locked room. A doctor let Gabe in to visit Price, locking the hatch behind him, so that Gabe would have to use the intercom when he was finished, to ask to be let out.
Price sat on the side of his bed, his hands folded between his legs, eyes on the floor, and mouth slightly agape.
“Price.”
Slowly, Peter Price lifted his head until his eyes met Gabe’s.
“Roach.”
“How’ve you…” Gabe cleared his throat. “What are they feeding you, in here?”
Price shrugged, his gaze sinking to the floor once more.
Lowering himself into the only chair, Gabe stared hard at the man slumped before him.
Part of him felt angry at Price, for letting himself get this bad. Mostly, he felt only pity, however.
“You know the Quatro don’t control the Amblers and Gatherers,” Price said. “Right?”
Gabe’s breath caught in his throat, and he held it there.
“I think, eventually, all of us realized that,” Price wen
t on.
“What are you talking about? Cut it out.”
But Price continued, as though Gabe hadn’t spoken. “None of us wanted to say it out loud, because that would make it real. So we kept following orders. Kept shooting. We’d already slaughtered hundreds of Quatro, and to stop would have been to acknowledge that we’re not soldiers at all, but butchers.”
“They attacked us, Price. They started this.”
“They don’t own the machines. Some other species created them. The Amblers protect us as much as they protect the Quatro—which is to say, not at all.”
“Do you have proof for any of this?”
“Ask Tessa Notaras.”
“What does she have to do with it?”
“She helped Bronson trick everyone into thinking the Quatro are more powerful than they are.”
Gabe rose slowly to his feet. Then he started for the door without another word.
“You know it’s true, Roach,” Price said. “If they owned the Amblers, they’d have sent them at us all at once! Why would they leave the Amblers to roam the wilderness while we bombed their homes?”
When the doctor unlocked the door for him, Gabe slammed it behind him.
Ten minutes after he used his com to ask Notaras to meet him in a corridor between the station’s only functioning landing bay and a cargo hold, he found her there.
“What can I do for you, Petty Officer?” she said, using the new rank Gabe had recently attained.
“Price says you helped Bronson trick us into thinking the Quatro control the Amblers.”
Notaras froze, and the color drained from her face. “Price is delusional.”
“Maybe. But judging by your reaction, he’s right on the money with this one.” Gabe was trying to sound casual, but his voice had a hard edge.
“The Quatro…the Quatro attacked us, Roach.”
“One of them attacked Laudano. One of them. And this is Laudano we’re talking about, who has a long history of double-crossing people. Besides, it wasn’t that single attack that really got the soldiers riled up, Notaras. It was the idea that the Quatro had sent one of those metal giants against us, to kill our people.”
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