Maggie said nothing, refusing to even turn around.
What’s got her goat? he wondered. Having no answer, he grabbed his rifle and stepped through the access door and onto the small metal platform. He glanced back at Maggie. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
“You better be.”
The door slid shut. As the elevator made its slow descent to the ground, Jake took another glance at the swamp. It looked more foreboding than it had from inside the cat. A shiver ran down his spine.
What the hell am I getting myself into?
Chapter 2 – Bats
____________________
As soon as the metal platform touched down, Jake stepped off and raised his M63 to his shoulder. The edge of the swamp was fifty meters away. After a quick check to make sure it was clear, he looked back at the hyper-drive complex. No movement could be seen around the four main buildings of the research facility. The metal and concrete structures were high enough to block any view of the rest of the 57th Mechs Jake knew were on the north side of the complex.
If I confirm something’s in the swamp, I’ll go fetch the rest of my unit. I can’t abandon my post until I know for sure.
He touched the mike switch on his headset. “Maggie, comm check.”
“—broken and —torted. Maybe you sh— Just my opin—”
Piss. What I wouldn’t give to afford gear that actually works. Ripping the headset off, Jake slapped it against the side of his leg and put it back on. “How do you hear me now?”
“Better. Make sure you activate your IFF before trying to walk through the force field. That’s a class four shield, you know.”
“Roger that.”
Glancing ahead, Jake made out the discoloration in the air marking the edge of the complex’s force field just shy of the swamp.
“Well,” Jake whispered. “No guts, no glory.”
Lowering his M63 to waist level, he took off running for the swamp.
“Did you activate your IFF?” came Maggie’s voice over the headset.
Jake touched the Identify Friend or Foe transmitter on his belt. A two-by-two-meter section of the force field to his front dimmed. He ran through. Once on the other side, he touched the IFF transmitter again and the dimmed section of the shield returned to full strength.
“Careful,” said Maggie over the headset. “—mend you—interference with— Do you cop—?”
This sucks, Jake thought. If the jamming’s this bad fifty meters from my cat, I ain’t gonna hear squat when I get in the swamp.
As soon as he stepped into the dark swamp water, he sank to his waist.
Crap, that’s cold.
He sniffed the air.
And it stinks worse than a copper-miner’s outhouse in the middle of summer.
As he waded forward, the blades of tall grass along the edge of the swamp gave way to smaller trees and sticker vines farther in. Every so often, one of his boots sunk into the soft mud enough that he had to grab onto one of the trees to pull free. After a hundred meters of slow going, the murky water was up to his chest. Something splashed to his right. A large ripple on the water’s surface passed directly to his front.
Far enough. I’m a cat pilot, not one of those special ops wizard scouts. I don’t get paid enough for this.
Pulling a portable sensor out of the breast pocket of his flight suit, he shook off the dirty water and switched it on. Nothing happened.
Are you kidding me? Tilley told me it was waterproof.
After shaking the device a couple of times, he checked to make sure the power light was on. It was, so he figured it was still being jammed.
Placing the useless sensor back in his pocket, he touched the transmit button on his headset. “Maggie, I’m in almost two hundred meters. The sensor’s still not working. How’s things back where you’re at?”
Nothing.
“Maggie. Sit rep. Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Frustrated, Jake scanned the area to his front. All he could see were five-meter-high trees, sticker vines, swamp grass, and a whole lot of muddy water.
Something flapped in the air to his left front.
Jake froze.
The flapping sound came again.
What is that? If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was a large bird of some kind. The only problem is, Thrakis ain’t got no birds.
Curious, he started working his way toward his ten o’clock where the noise seemed to originate. He only made it five meters before the flapping sound came a third time. This time it was accompanied by a twittering noise. Raising his M63 to his shoulder, Jake headed straight for the twittering sound. The water was waist level and mud sucked at his feet, but he did his best to move quietly. A drop of sweat stung his left eye. Hurriedly wiping his eyes clear, he searched the nearby growth for any sign of trouble. Seeing none, he breathed a sigh of relief and continued on. Twenty meters farther, he passed around a clump of small trees matted with vines. Seeing the source of the twittering, he froze.
You gotta be kidding me. Crosioians!
Twenty meters away were five of the two-and-a-half-meter-tall bats wearing light armor. Three Crosioians were working on a two-meter-square piece of electronic equipment with a satellite dish pointed in the direction of the research facility. The other two bats were perched on the limbs of two trees with large-bore rifles at the ready. The obvious guards were flapping their wings slowly as if trying to take some of their weight off the branches of the thin trees.
Clink, came the distinctive sound of metal on metal from behind Jake.
Spinning around, he flipped off the safety of his M63.
Perched in a limb to his right rear was a Crosioian in the act of raising its rifle. A sling dangled from the bat’s stock and handguard.
As Jake dove to the side, he had a split-second thought that the bat didn’t have a Maggie to make sure its equipment was taped down so it wouldn’t clink. Then he was firing at the same time as the bat.
A geyser of muddy water splashed high into the air where Jake had been standing.
Four holes leaking green blood appeared in the bat’s chest as the M63’s plasma rounds ate through the Crosioian’s light armor.
A flurry of green plasma beams erupted from the direction of the other bats as they returned fire.
Having no desire to try slugging it out with a team of highly trained special ops, Jake ran through the waist-deep water as fast as he could make his legs move. Pointing his rifle behind him with one hand, he pulled the trigger, spraying-and-praying while half-swimming, half-running the way he’d come.
“Maggie!” he shouted into the headset’s mike. “It’s Crosioian regulars. Get back to Commander Onstott. Warn him they’ve got some kind of jammer. I think they’re trying to take out our force field.”
Only static came from the headset’s earphones.
Catching a glimpse of movement to his right, Jake blindly pointed his M63 in that direction and fired a long burst of plasma rounds. As the balls of red energy from his rifle shot out, one of the bats fired a green plasma beam that cut the vine-covered branches off a small tree to his left.
Diving under water, Jake hit the thick mud on the bottom and kicked off, spinning around as he did. Coming to the surface, he fired a five second burst of rounds from his M63, waving the barrel left and right like he used to do with mining hoses when he was a kid. Partially blinded by the muddy liquid, he spun back around and began slogging through the waist-deep water again. At any moment he expected to feel a hot beam of plasma energy cut into his back. None did. He did hear sizzling sounds to his left and right as swamp water splashed high into the air.
Something large stepped to his front as he nearly collided with two camouflaged brerellium-steel legs supporting an armored body with the number 05 painted on its chest.
“Maggie!” Jake yelled.
A salvo of eight missiles shot out the rocket pods mounted to either side of the Paladin’s cockpit.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amid the explosions, Jake saw the cat’s left gun arm rise. The UHAAV’s anti-personnel Gatling gun opened up, making a sound similar to a hornets’ nest he’d once knocked out of a tree as a kid.
The green plasma beams that had been coming from behind him stopped.
“Hurry!” came Maggie’s voice over the cat’s loudspeaker. “I start sinking if I stand in one place too long.”
Making his way around the Paladin’s legs, Jake saw the elevator platform lowering. And a hundred meters away he saw the shimmering in the air that was the research complex’s force field. The energy field flickered and disappeared.
“Crap!” Jake shouted. “That’s not good.”
A loud roar sounded above and behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder, Jake saw a massive chunk of metal streaking out of the sky. Blasts of plasma energy shot out the bottom of the now obvious transport as maneuvering thrusters slowed the big starship’s rate of descent.
“Jake!” said Maggie over the Paladin’s speakers. “It’s a Crosioian troopship; battalion sized. The complex’s force field is down. Get inside! Now!”
Just as Jake stepped onto the elevator’s metal platform, the front of the massive troopship hit the swamp not thirty meters away. A three-meter-high wave of mud and water washed over and past the Paladin. Even shielded by the cat’s legs, Jake was still thrown into the water. He lost his grip on his strapless M63 as it went flying through the air. Just before his head went completely under, he caught a glimpse of the Paladin toppling onto its back, into the swamp, apparently unable to get traction in the thick mud.
Something pinned Jake’s right foot in the soft muck. He pushed against the something with both hands, feeling unyielding steel.
My boot’s caught under one of Maggie’s legs!
With his head well below the water’s surface, Jake struggled to reach fresh air, but to no avail. Just as his breath was on the verge of giving out, the Paladin shifted slightly. Bracing his free foot against the cat’s leg, Jake pushed with all his might. His right foot came free, leaving his boot behind.
Up to the surface he went. Gulping in a lungful of fresh air, Jake shook his head to clear his eyes before taking stock of the situation. The Paladin was next to him, lying on its back. As Maggie tried to rise, the UHAAV’s torso twisted right and left and its legs and weapons appendages flopped up and down, splashing water in all directions. Unable to get traction in the soupy muck that was the swamp’s bottom, the Paladin remained on its back, only succeeding in digging itself deeper into the mud. Thirty meters away was the front end of the Crosioian troopship, the forward ramp just starting to lower.
Glancing around, Jake noticed a shimmering in the air centered on the troopship and reaching all the way back to the hyper-drive complex. The sudden realization of what was happening came rushing to the forefront of his mind.
“Maggie!” Jake yelled, hoping the external sound receivers on the Paladin were still working. “They’ve replaced the complex’s force field with their own. The rest of the 57th is probably caught outside its energy field. We’re trapped inside the Crosioians’ shield with the bats. Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
The Paladin’s arms and legs stopped moving. The cat lay on its back in the water with just a half meter of its chest and cockpit above the swamp’s surface.
“I can’t,” came Maggie’s voice over the loudspeakers. “I’ve got no leverage point. The mud’s too deep. Run. Get out of here before the ramp’s all the way down.” The Paladin’s right and left gun appendages rose above the water and pointed at the lowering ramp. “I’ll cover you as much as I can before they take me out.”
The hell with that, Jake thought. He glanced at his cat before looking back at the lowering ramp. Already he could see the tops of the helmets of the first wave of storm troopers apparently waiting for the ramp to hit the water’s surface before they came rushing out. The cockpits of three Crosioian recon cats were visible behind the soldiers. The four-meter-high UHAAVs were nearly as large as his Paladin, and only slightly lighter armed. An anti-armor missile launcher was attached to the shoulder of the lead Crosioian cat.
“Run, Jake!” shouted Maggie.
Jake ran, but it wasn’t toward the swamp’s edge a hundred meters away. Instead he took a running leap onto the Paladin’s chest and grabbed the dangling hook of the cat’s winch. Praying Maggie would release the cable’s locking mechanism, he pulled the hook and cable toward the troopship’s still lowering ramp. The metal platform was almost to the surface of the water.
Green beams of plasma energy whizzed past both sides of Jake’s head. Continuing to pull the winch’s hook and cable with his left hand, he drew his Deloris blaster with his right and pulled the trigger as fast as he could jerk his finger. At least some of his hasty shots must’ve struck home because two of the bats were flung backward into their comrades, making their shots go wild.
Jamming the winch’s hook onto a metal bar at the end of the now lowered ramp, Jake fired off the last two rounds in his blaster’s magazine and awaited his fate. Just as a dozen bats started swinging their weapons in his direction, the winch’s cable tightened. A sucking sound came from behind him, followed by the loud buzz of the Paladin’s Gatling gun as scores of brerellium-steel rounds tore into the massed storm troopers.
Half a dozen Crosioians were ripped to pieces by the stream of solid projectiles before the bats knew what hit them. At the same time, anti-personnel and anti-armor rockets from the Paladin’s shoulder-mounted rocket pods shot through the troopship’s opening. Some hit storm troopers. Some hit the three Crosioian recon cats, causing secondary explosions in the confined space of the starship’s cargo hold. A few of Maggie’s missiles streaked out of sight down the length of the ship’s bay. Large explosions rocked the troopship.
“Well?” came Maggie’s voice over the sound of Gatling gun and rocket fire. “Are you going to help, or do I have to do it all by myself?”
Rolling across the now lowered ramp, Jake scooped up a dropped Crosioian rifle, rose to his knees, and pulled the trigger. The large-bore weapon jumped in his grip, spinning him halfway around before it flew out of his hands. He caught sight of Maggie’s hologram inside the Paladin’s cockpit. The redhead flashed him a smile as the last of the rockets shot out of the cat’s shoulder pods.
Noticing the mangled remains of the access door’s elevator dangling behind the cat, Jake knew there’d be no getting aboard the cat in the usual manner. Diving to his left, he rolled on the troopship’s ramp on his shoulder and came up shoving a new magazine into his Deloris blaster.
A bat in heavy assault armor spun on one foot-paw with wings outstretched, swinging a pointed barb at its left wing joint straight for Jake’s head.
Ducking below the wing, Jake shoved the barrel of his blaster against the flexible metal connecting the bat’s helmet to its chest armor. Hanging onto the Crosioian’s back, Jake pulled the Deloris blaster’s trigger as fast as he could move his finger. He emptied half the clip before the storm trooper screeched a cry of pain and fell face forward onto the deck.
Meter-wide pads of metal hit the ramp on either side of Jake’s head as one of the heavier Crosioian UHAAVs bent down and ducked its cockpit in an attempt to clear the troopship’s ramp. Twin-barreled 200mm phase cannons on either side of the enemy cat’s chest told Jake all he needed to know about Maggie’s chances of survival if the Crosioian cat brought its weapons to bear.
An anti-tank missile attached to the back of the storm trooper he’d killed caught his eye. Whether through luck or divine providence, the rocket appeared to be pointed directly at the Crosioian cat’s back. Without considering the danger, Jake pointed his blaster at the tail-end of the missile, covered his face with his left arm, and pulled the blaster’s trigger.
Boom!
Flames and hot air surrounded Jake as the propellant in the missile ignited. He was flung into the swamp, hearing what sounded like a secondary explosion as he went.
Cool water surrounded him before he could see what was happening. Coming to the surface, he regained his sight just in time to observe the Paladin climbing over the burning hulk of the Crosioian UHAAV’s detached cockpit where it lay in the swamp with a smoldering hole in its back.
Following Maggie’s lead, Jake clambered over the downed cat and jumped onto the troopship’s ramp. He tripped and fell forward, banging his knees on the metal surface. Groaning in pain, he looked at his feet. His right foot was bare. After pulling the mud-soaked boot off his left foot, he stood just in time to see Maggie kicking scurrying storm troopers left and right as she fired into the back of the cargo bay with the Paladin’s Gatling gun. A large beam of green plasma energy from inside the cargo bay cut across the Paladin’s left gun appendage. The Gatling gun and half the cat’s left arm fell to the deck as Maggie dodged right.
The cargo bay was just tall enough for the Paladin to stand upright. The access door on the rear of the cat’s cockpit was tantalizingly open but way out of reach.
Spying a ladder to a catwalk on the right side of the cargo bay, Jake made a diving jump for the metal rungs. In less than two heartbeats, he was on the catwalk, running to catch up with his cat. Two human-sized bats in orange utility uniforms stood on the catwalk, blocking his way. One of the Crosioians raised a large wrench.
Jake fired a single shot from his Deloris blaster, hitting the bat square between its fur-covered eyes. It toppled over the rail. The second bat threw its wrench at Jake’s head before jumping over the railing and floating to the lower deck on outspread wings.
Running hard, Jake got even with his Paladin and jumped off the catwalk.
Apparently Maggie sensed what he was doing, because the UHAAV turned just enough so he hit the frame around the access door and bounced inside. The door slid shut behind him. Before he could regain his feet, he was tossed against the cockpit’s bulkhead and ceiling as Maggie lurched left and right in an attempt to dodge enemy fire.
Steel Apocalypse Page 4