Edge of War (The Eternal Frontier Book 2)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Other exos turned on the ice god, and their beams cut into its flesh, leaving a score of deep black singe marks. Charred skin peeled away in spots to reveal coursing red muscle where mist rose from the revealed tendons and sinew, freezing almost instantly. Even though the ice god bled like a mortal, its fury was that of a titan. It crushed another exo with all the ease of a man rubbing his boot across a cockroach.

  “Did you ever realize how fortunate we are?” Coren asked Tag in an almost reverent voice.

  Tag didn’t have to clarify what Coren meant. When they had barely escaped with their own lives before, it was because they’d had the speed of an air car with a skeleton crew and the insight to blast out the ice god’s eyes. Evidently the Drone-Mechs hadn’t thought of that strategy yet and had relegated themselves to strategies of brute force.

  Another salvo of desperate fire leapt from the exos and bore into the ice god. A wave of unexpected sympathy coursed through Tag for the giant creature. As he watched the Death Walker levy blast after blast of slugs and energy weapons into the monster’s hide, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the creature, which had unknowingly walked into the worst day of its terrible life.

  It didn’t seem to want Tag’s sympathy. Instead it threw its bleeding, shredded body into the legs of the Walker, and one of the Walker’s legs crumpled as if it had been made of toothpicks.

  “That monster makes it look easy,” Sumo said. “Can we keep it?”

  “If you can find a place on the Argo for it,” Tag said. “It might be a tight squeeze, though.”

  “While the Argo may be inadequate, the Montenegro has capacity for such a creature,” Alpha said. “But the odds that Admiral Doran would approve of bringing it are rather dismal, according to my data analysis.”

  “You’re spot on again,” Sofia said. Her hands were thrown behind her head in an almost relaxed pose. Tag absolutely hated that in the midst of such tension, dealing with a multitude of threats to their lives, she could exhibit such calm. Then again, she had somehow lived with the Forinths for five years without getting killed. Keeping calm and going with the flow must have been something she had mastered.

  Right now, Tag found it difficult to even fake nonchalance as he watched the ice god coil around the Walker. The monster threw its fangs into the limping Walker’s metallic skin. It let out a frustrated bellow that shook the air car’s cabin, and Tag thought he could see Coren and the other Mechanics’ fur stand on end through their glowing orange visors. Tag imagined it was wondering why it couldn’t tear into the Walker’s silver flesh or spill the thing’s blood. The Walker’s weapons tore into the ice god, unable to miss at such short range, and the monster started to lose its grip. Many of its legs were broken and twisted, and the gashes in its side bled with flash-frozen blood. The Walker began picking up speed again despite the weight of the dying ice god pulling it down.

  “Something we can do, Captain?” Lonestar asked, her trigger finger tapping on her rifle.

  “Pray, if you believe in it,” Tag said. They were only a klick or so away from the Argo. Even with the Walker gaining, they might still make it to the ship in time to activate the point defense cannons. The depleted-uranium rounds should have no problem punching a hole or two in the Walker.

  At least, that was what Tag hoped.

  Snow, ice, and rock spewed in geysers around them as the Walker took potshots, but the Mechanic driver deftly avoided the incoming fire. Sofia had finally lost her cool demeanor. Her hands clenched and unclenched as if she wanted to be driving the car. She probably felt as helpless as Tag being a passenger and nothing more in this hell ride.

  Another chain of pulsefire ripped into the snow and ice. The air car almost slid sideways from the concussion of the impact, but the pilot somehow maintained control.

  “That was too damn close,” Bull said. “Next time you drag me onto a planet like this, I’m bringing high-explosive rounds. Something better to blast those xeno assholes into the atmosphere.”

  But it looked as if explosives wouldn’t be necessary. Another ice god exploded from beneath the planet’s surface in a shower of debris and barreled into the Death Walker. Its body curled around two of the legs, crunching them together, tripping the weaponized behemoth. The Walker could no longer struggle on against the combined efforts of the two ice gods, and the beasts dragged it to the ground. It hit with a sickening thud of metal screeching against rock. A huge puff of frost billowed into the air, and the ice gods writhed, attacking the Walker relentlessly. Stray pulse rounds still burned through the blizzard, and several low blasts sounded as Tag and company raced away from the violent scene.

  “We would have appreciated it if you had sent one of those creatures our way,” Bracken said over the comm line.

  “I don’t control ’em. I just call ’em,” Tag said. “You still got a tail?”

  “Exos, mostly. A few squads of foot soldiers. No Walkers. It would appear they really wanted you.”

  “Strange thing, that,” Tag said. “Not sure why I’m of any value to them.”

  “Then again, maybe you aren’t that important,” Bracken said. “Maybe it’s not you but rather your ship.”

  It sounded like one of those honest Mechanic statements that were delivered as a half insult. But Tag couldn’t deny that she might be onto something. “I suppose so. They tried to annihilate the Argo before, so I wouldn’t expect them to treat it any differently now.”

  “They better not destroy it before you give us some support,” Bracken said, her voice rising in sudden alarm. “Because from what’s showing up on our scanners now, we’re going to need it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A knot twisted in Tag’s stomach. He was almost afraid to ask Bracken what she saw out there, but ignoring the threat wouldn’t make it disappear.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “Looks like several dropships are circling Eta-Five within the troposphere,” said Bracken. “They’re flying low—presumably to avoid the atmospheric anomaly so they can still communicate with their ground forces. The signals I’m picking up also show they dropped troops all over the planet. I’m guessing they dumped Drone-Mechs everywhere they saw a heat signature since they couldn’t find your ship.”

  “Damn,” Tag said. “So they’ve got more Death Walkers and Mechs descending on us.”

  “That certainly is part of it,” Bracken said, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already sent a courier drone up the gravity well back to whatever fleet they came from. Who knows what in the machine’s name is waiting for us above those clouds.”

  “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Tag said as they drew near the Argo’s location.

  “Captain Brewer, you’re positive it’s here?” one of the Mechanic crew asked.

  “Yep,” Tag said. “Just buried under some snow.” He was proud to see the sensor-camouflaging strategy not only fooled the Drone-Mech sensor arrays, but it was just as good against their Mechanic friends. It made sense of course, given they were operating the same technologies, and he refrained from gloating in the power of their new tech. It was Coren after all who had masterminded it, and Tag would be damned if he made the alien’s head any bigger than it already was.

  “Stop here, and let us out,” Tag said. “You’re welcome to join us aboard the Argo if you don’t think you can make it back to your own crew in time.”

  The Mechanics seemed to take that as a challenge. Tag should have known.

  “Our abilities and vehicle are more than adequate to return us to the Stalwart before it launches,” the driver said.

  “Suit yourself,” Sofia said, opening one of the side doors. A harsh blast of air cut through the cabin, and Tag was immediately thankful for the self-heating EVA suit he wore. Wind, snow, and ice beat at Coren, Alpha, Sofia, and the marines as Tag led them from the car. He noticed Bull’s eyes never left the ground. Likely the marine didn’t want to remind himself he was at the mercy of uncontrollable gravity and a mag
netosphere to protect him against the vacuum and radiation of open space.

  “Captain, pardon me, but where is the goddamn ship?” Lonestar asked.

  “Coren, do the honors,” Tag said.

  Coren activated his wrist-mounted weapons, and a blue flame licked out of its barrels. It cut into the ice and snow like a plasma cutter through alloy, and he tunneled down into the depths of the icy buildup until he hit the glimmering silver surface of the Argo.

  “All clear,” Coren said in a monotonous voice.

  Tag ushered the crew down into the fresh void. He scanned the horizon for any glints of metal, any signs at all that the Drone-Mechs were approaching. But he saw nothing. At least, not yet. Scrambling down after Sumo and Gorenado, Tag entered the cargo bay. Bull seemed to have recovered from his planetary phobia and had initiated the cargo bay closing and repressurization procedures.

  “Alpha, Sofia, Coren, to the bridge,” Tag said. “Initiate ops, weapons, and get those engines running hot. I want to map a hyperspace jump as soon as we get off this planet. We’ll need to share it with Bracken, too.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Alpha said, jogging ahead of the crew up the ladders and down the corridor. She was the youngest member of the crew, yet she had proved herself more than capable of the tasks Tag had handed her. For a moment, he realized how insane it was that he was trusting the lives of his crew and the Stalwart with trajectories and flight plans drawn up by a synth-bio AI he had created only weeks ago. Three hells, if he thought too much about that, he would probably scare himself as shitless as Bull had been seeing a real sky for the first time.

  Once the crew reached the bridge, they settled into their respective positions. Tag reveled in the growl of the engines and the thrusters as they warmed up.

  “How are weapons looking?” Tag asked. “And more importantly, countermeasures?”

  “We’re at one hundred percent,” Coren said.

  “Ops?”

  “Shields are at one hundred percent strength. I have charted a course off the planet—now passed along to Sofia. The computers are waiting for us to leave the planet before they’ll be able to calculate an accurate hyperspace course.”

  “Excellent,” Tag said. “How does it feel to finally be taking a fully intact ship into battle?” He almost couldn’t help the boyish excitement tingeing his voice. Every other time they had encountered the Drone-Mechs to this point, something had been wrong with the Argo.

  “Still feels like we are operating a woefully downgraded vessel,” Coren said. “Mechanic tech—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we got it, Coren,” Sofia cut in. “But how about we focus on kicking some Drone-Mech ass?”

  “I propose we do indeed, as you say, kick some Drone-Mech ass,” Alpha said. She paused. “Captain, incoming transmission from Bracken.”

  “Put her through.”

  Bracken’s face lit up on the viewscreen. Behind her were the dull-red glow of battle lights and a dozen Mechanic forces, bouncing around inside the belly of one of their vehicles. “Brewer, we could really use your assistance. A little human firepower, no matter how unreliable, could go a long way toward covering us as we get the Stalwart spacebound.”

  “On it,” Tag said. “Coren, take down the camo. Divert that energy to your active countermeasures. I have no doubt we’re going to be taking some fire.”

  “Understood,” Coren said. His thin fingers worked across the holoscreens faster than Tag could follow. The screens might have been made for a human, but Coren probably navigated them more quickly than any human weapons officer in the SRE.

  “Bull, you guys strapped in back there?” Tag asked over the comms.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Sofia, take us up.”

  “Roger, Skipper,” she said.

  The ship shook, healthy vibrations resonating through its bulkhead. Tag’s crash couch trembled slightly on its gimbals as he watched the viewscreens and holoscreens around him. Snow and ice melted off the ship or else slid off in huge white sheets. Soon the gray skies, cut by vivid arcs of webbing green lightning, showed everywhere around them. Mountains and pillars of ice and rock like enormous stalagmites speared up from the landscape.

  “Captain, we’ve got contacts zeroing in on our position,” Alpha reported.

  Sure enough, several red dots on Tag’s holomap were rushing to the green dot representing the Argo. A flood of smaller red dots broke off from the pack, accelerating toward them.

  “Torpedoes incoming,” Alpha said.

  “Goddamn if this isn’t familiar,” Sofia said.

  “You guys know the drill.” Tag braced himself as Coren launched point defense cannons and antilidar and -radar chatter to drive off the incoming ordnance. Sofia twisted the ship as if it were a fighter, and the Argo groaned under the duress. “Let’s go save ourselves some Mechanics.”

  It didn’t take long for the Argo to catch up to the Mechanic convoy. In between shooting torpedoes down, Coren raked the surviving exos and foot soldiers rushing the Stalwart. The Argo circled above the vessel as the Stalwart swallowed the black personnel carriers, cars, and hoverbikes. After a few minutes of the Argo providing a barrage of high-powered energy rounds and kinetic slugs to ward off any approaching troops, the Stalwart lit up on Tag’s holomap. Its power plants had gone online, and the thrusters were warming up.

  “Stalwart, Argo,” Tag said. “What’s your time to takeoff?”

  “Three minutes and counting,” Bracken said. “Countermeasures aren’t yet fully operational. We’re having intermittent energy shield shortages.”

  “But you can fly?”

  “We can fly.”

  More red dots flashed across the holomap, and Tag had to remind himself to breathe as the Drone-Mech dropships glared over the holoscreen, converging on them. Through the viewscreen, he could actually see them in the distance along with the pinpricks of light indicating incoming fire. Dropships. The ships weren’t meant for space-to-space or air-to-air battle. From everything he knew about them, they were better equipped to support ground forces. That didn’t stop them from being dangerous.

  “Good,” Tag finally said to Bracken. “Because we should start moving real soon.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The first rounds of blue pulsefire hit the Argo’s shields. Energy dissipated in a splash of colors, vaguely resembling the celebratory World Unification holiday fireworks Tag had once watched with his parents in Old Houston. The emotions flooding him now were a far cry from the awe and jubilation he had felt then. Emerald fissures formed over the energy shields, appearing with each absorbed blast, and his crash couch quaked while crimson letters glowed on the holoscreen, reporting incoming fire.

  Damn smart computer you are, Tag thought.

  In his head, he inventoried the missiles and torpedoes they had at their disposal. They could no doubt knock the dropships down with a sustained volley of warheads. But the Argo was a research vessel. Its capacity for storing ordnance couldn’t match that of a destroyer, and expending their stores now would mean less for later, rendering them at a much greater disadvantage against whatever Drone-Mech fleet awaited them off planet. He preferred to act on the conservative side should they run into some real trouble beyond Eta-Five.

  “Coren, return fire with Gauss cannons,” Tag said. “Prioritize dropship weapon systems.”

  “Copy,” Coren said before initiating a barrage of slugs. They cut through the sky at hypersonic speeds, leaving contrails of vapor where the heat of the slugs slicing through air turned ice and snow into mist.

  Through his holoscreen, Tag zoomed in on the nearest dropship, revealing gas venting from one of its cannon batteries where the slugs had penetrated. Another dropship started to tilt sideways, smoke wafting from a huge hole in its side as gravity tugged at it, beckoning it toward the land of ice gods.

  “See ya, suckers,” Sofia said. She kept the Argo rapidly maneuvering to thwart the incoming fire, but her efforts couldn’t contend with the sheer quantity of
rounds. The shields lit up as they absorbed the rounds.

  “Eighty percent of full,” Alpha said. Another blast of pulsefire rocked the Argo. “Now sixty-eight.”

  “Bracken, what’s going on down there?” Tag asked.

  “Impellers are online, but we’re facing another energy shield drop,” she replied. “If we rise into oncoming fire like that, we’ll be torn apart.”

  “You need help?” Tag asked.

  Bracken actually let out a laugh. “No, not from your crew. My engineers are on it. We just need time.”

  Coren shared a knowing look with Tag. “I trained the engineering crew. Of course they don’t need our help. They’re one of the best technical teams in the Mechanic navy.”

  “No surprise there,” Tag said. Another salvo hit the Argo. “Now why don’t you focus on our crew? Start with keeping us alive.”

  The dropships began flying lower, and in their wake, snow and ice plumed up in huge waves, kicked up as they accelerated toward the Stalwart. There was something strange about the dramatic decrease in altitude that bothered Tag. The move didn’t give the ships a better vantage point for their cannon batteries; instead, it seemed to have worsened their shooting position.

  “Coren,” Tag said, “what are they doing?”

  “It’s a fast-drop maneuver for deployment.”

  “They’re unloading more ground forces?” Tag asked.

  “Death Walkers don’t do much good when they’re on a ship, do they?” Sofia asked, leaning into the controls.

  As the dropships regained altitude, they left behind a storm of black dots. Tag magnified his view, centering on one of those figures to see exactly what their enemies had deposited: more Death Walkers and exos, as Sofia had predicted. These appeared better equipped for battle against airborne forces as lasers and missiles flew from the ground troops, rocking against the Argo’s shields. The PDCs were having trouble keeping up with all the incoming ordnance, and warheads were exploding closer to the Argo than Tag would have liked. Beams tore into the energy shields, draining them as they fought to absorb the intense loads.