Battleframe (The Mindwars Book 1)

  Just as he rounded the corner and passed through the archway into the plaza Whizzbang said, “I thought that would be the case. Whose squad was Digging?”

  “I think that was Gardner’s.”

  “CT.”

  With Selfia and Acheron hot on his tail Whizzbang jump jetted down the steps to where Tiny was waiting. Not taking the time to do a more controlled burst from his jets Whizzbang let his servos take the impact as he landed in front of Tiny and his cloud of cigar smoke. Behind Tiny, the newly repaired Freehold ready reserve battleframes that were not on other duties scrambled into position.

  Selfia’s face was a mask of concern as she said, “Commander, both Acheron and I need to speak to you.”

  “Selfia, not now.”

  “It’s important.”

  “As important as the safety of Elzetro and everyone in Freehold.”

  “No sir.”

  “Then it will have to wait.”

  Speaking now to Tiny, Selfia and Acheron Whizzbang said, “I think that Elzetro stumbled across the main Scourge attack force to the south, but from experience, Scourge tactics have always been to attack from two places at once to throw us off our guard. The first will be a feint while the second will be like a hammer fall. My guess is the feint was disrupted by the unexpected arrival of our Digging squads so soon after the recent Freehold assault, and the second by Elzetro’s curiosity.”

  A smile spread across his face as he leaned in to his three friends conspiratorially, “Are you interested in some payback?”

  Selfia was the first to speak, “It’s been long overdue.”

  Acheron quickly followed with, “I’ve been meaning to further test the effects of a few tellurite rounds on Scourge anatomy.”

  He spat his old cigar from his mouth, and as if by magic, a new freshly lit one materialised in its place. Tiny’s voice rumbled, “Time for a new cigar.” He then emphasized this plain statement by smashing his Rex’s enormous armoured right fist into his left armoured palm.

  Whizzbang expected no less enthusiasm from the three battleframes before him. “I need you three to head north with the Freehold reserve to where those thumping squads were mining and get them out of there. My guess is they have been calling for help but like what happened to Elzetro the static has been too strong to get through. With any luck you should have overwhelming odds to deal with the feint.”

  Whizzbang pressed a few commands on his wrist-comp to bring up a map of the area. Pointing to a position on the map he said, “Next I want you to high tail it back to this position due south of Freehold and above Research Ravine.” Pointing again to various locations on his map, Whizzbang continued, “Given Elzetro’s last call, the Scourge should be coming up the hillside next to this abandoned village.”

  Whizzbang looked up from the map. “I need you, the Digging squads and the Free reserve to come over the top of the hill from Research Ravine and give the Scourge a little surprise.”

  Selfia leaned in to get a better look at the map and said, “While all this is happening, what are you going to be doing Whizz?”

  “I will join the squad heading to help Elzetro and going to meet the major Scourge force. Our job will be to delay them as long as possible, until you get into position. If you can, let me know once you’re good over the local comnet.”

  With a puzzled look on his face Acheron said, “So let me get this straight Whizz. You, Bosk, your two sons and a couple of friends are going to delay a hundred or so deadly Scourge veterans. Is that right?”

  Slapping Ach on the back of his frame, Whizzbang gave a little chuckle and said, “You’ve got it in a nutshell Ach, so make sure you don’t take too long.”

  Whizzbang raised his voice for the benefit of everyone in the plaza area. “Your Squad Leaders will brief you with the details of your mission, but I want you to know that I’m confident that each of you will perform your duty with all the zeal and energy that a Concord battleframe pilot can muster. Once this is over I look forward to seeing you at the bar for a round on me.”

  Whizzbang could hear a few laughs at the last comment and saw many more nods of agreement that they would make sure that he made good on his offer of a round of drinks. It was good seeing them so positive after the recent disaster. He knew that by the end of the day it was likely that a number of frames would be eporting back to Free, and a few may not even make it that far.

  Standing with his back completely straight he first saluted his three newly appointed Squad Leaders and then the rest of the battleframes in the plaza. With the clunking of armour the battleframes responded in unison with the salute that would normally be given to those that had passed into the next life. Two fingers slapped armoured chests and then pointed skywards that told Whizzbang he would never be alone.

  Whizzbang humbly accepted the honour and stood at attention for another few seconds before wheeling and kicking his jump jets to life to head in the direction of his friends.

  Whizzbang left with Selfia’s words ringing across the local comnet, “G2G Whizzbang. We’ll see you asap.”

  Elzetro struggled to keep the glider wings activated with a few electro-mechanical hacks that he had developed over the last month from playing “Scourge Wars”. He was a natural mechanic, but even for him it was a feat of genius to keep in the air while repairing a critical system. Sweat poured off his face as he simultaneous adjusted inputs to the power relays and dodged Scourge Sniper fire.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he could see squads of Scourge moving forward out of the cover of the undergrowth. They poured out like ants from a disturbed nest onto the rocky terrain at the base of the hill. For the past minute, he had been trying to adjust his angle of attack to stretch his glide so that he could soar over the hill without stalling. The distant glow of a sniper barrel told him that he had better abruptly shift his direction to the right or risk being pinned mid-air on a beam of molten energy. The zing of the Sniper beam passed through the space he had just vacated, but the sudden wrenching on the glider’s control surfaces, created a number of additional urgent problems for him to address.

  As he continued down his glide slope, it became evident that the constant dodging of both Juggernaut plasma discharges and Sniper fire, that he did not have enough height to get all the way back to Freehold. His left winglet was leaking tellurite gas like a sieve, which meant that he really could not risk stretching the glide any further without risking a mid-air explosion. It was a miracle that he was in the air at all.

  Hoping beyond hope that he was again out of range of the Scourge jamming signals Elzetro broadcast on the local comnet, “Hey Dad, Bosky, are you there?”

  An instant later Bosk replied, “Elzetro, Bosk here, son.”

  Relief passed through him like a soothing salve as he heard his father’s voice. “Dad, I can’t stay in the air any longer and I’m not going to get over that hill a click south-south west of Freehold.”

  Bosk’s voice tinged with worry, “CT Elzetro, hang in there the cavalry’s on its way. Just do your best to keep heading home.”

  “CT Dad. I’ll be heading in with at least eight Scourge fists on my tail plus more on the way.”

  “CT Elzetro.”

  A few seconds later, the left winglet finally gave out. Unlike physical wings that would buckle or rip from an airframe, a battleframe’s wings were pure energy. When Elzetro’s wing stopped functioning, one minute it was working and the next it vanished. The resulting lift from the right wing without the corresponding balancing lift from the left instantly spun Elzetro in the air and slammed him into the ground on his back. As he hit, dirt and rocks sprayed up all around him. Luckily, with the upward slope of the hill working to his advantage the fall was only about ten feet and his battleframe easily absorbed the impact.

  Kicking his servos into action Elzetro leapt out of his impromptu foxhole just as a Scourge sniper beam bore into the earth with a steaming hiss where he had been laying. Glancing back at the enemy below Elzetro viewed two new Sn
ipers bursting out from the jungle undergrowth. They immediately crouched down and lined him up for the kill. At the last possible instant, he kicked in his jump jets to scoot into the air and accelerate forward up the hill. The two ruby red energy beams slammed into the ground to either side of him, showering him with shattered rocks that pinged off his battleframe as he raced up the hillside.

  Elzetro allowed himself a brief smile. He was just about out of the frying pan, and hoped he was not into the fire.

  His hover-jump up the hill, however brief, finished with the last sputter of his energy drained jets. They would require at least fifteen seconds to recharge. Settling to the ground in a running motion Elzetro’s servo assisted legs kept him moving upwards. It felt like the tallest hill in the world but he was almost at the top.

  His left leg suddenly gave out and a searing pain enveloped him as he plunged head first onto the ground. The sniper shot had taken him where his calf muscle was enshrouded by his battle armour. Steam and molten metal jetted and burbled out of either end of a pencil wide hole that went through his entire leg. The intensity of the pain continued to escalate as the liquid metal met muscle and bone. It only slightly cooled itself in his quickly cauterising blood.

  In his fog of pain, Elzetro crawled his way behind the cover of a small rock. It was agony and the rock seemed so far away. Down below two of the Scourge Snipers were getting ready to fire again.

  The comnet crackled with Elzetro’s pained voice, “Are you there Dad?”

  “I’m coming as fast as I can son.”

  “I’ve been hit and I think this is it. I love you Dad. Tell Mum that I did a good job. Arrrrrr….it hurts so bad! Where are those frapping meds!” Elzetro’s pain broadcast across the comnet and the normally noisy airwaves suddenly went silent.

  Tears streamed down Bosk’s face as he pushed his battleframe to the limit to reach his son.

  Chapter 5

  Selfia in Command

  Selfia resorted to hand battle signals to both Tiny and Acheron. One of the reconnaissance Raven’s in her squad had reported there were four Scourge fists up ahead along the trail. The hand signals were a standard part of pilot training and used when there was a possibility that even the local comnet was being eavesdropped by the enemy.

  For the past twenty minutes, the three Concord squads had rapidly deployed to the north of Freehold in the hunt for the Scourge patrols that had disrupted the various tellurite Digging operations. They needed that tellurite more than ever if they were to survive the next few days. Each of them had assumed their roles as Squad Leaders with four battleframes plus themselves in each. With both Tiny and Acheron more suited to smashing enemies with their fists rather than using their brains, Selfia had naturally assumed the role of squad group leader. No one disagreed that she was the brains and they were the brawn.

  Selfia hand signalled for Tiny to hide his squad on the opposite side of the path that the Scourge were about to come down. Both Acheron and her squads remained hidden where they were as the guttural sounds of Scourge speech bit its way through the air towards them from around a corner in the trail.

  Selfia swung her rifle off her back and peered through the scope at the oncoming Scourge fists while signalling to the others the number of Scourge moving down the path. “No wonder the thumping crews had bugged out.” she thought, “There were close to twenty Scourge marching down the path.” She indulged herself in a small smile, “…and towards her ambush”.

  Kneeling down behind a large rock, Acheron raised an eyebrow when he saw Selfia’s hand signal indicate the number of enemies moving towards them. “All the more to smash,” he thought to himself.

  Other than the crunch of metal shod boots on gravel, all was silent. The local indigenous wildlife had fled either on wing or into secluded burrows, in anticipation of the impending violence. The air almost crackled with tension as the dark armoured, pink eyed warriors moved towards the apex of the trap.

  Unexpectedly the lead Scourge Engineer stopped and began sniffing the air, while he looked from side to side. Holding his hand out palm upwards, he uttered a few unintelligible commands and a golden drone began to shimmer and take shape above the tips of his outstretched fingers.

  Selfia sighed and said under her breath, “That does it.”

  She aligned her cross hairs upon the Engineer’s forehead and pulled the trigger. One-minute the Scourge’s head was on his shoulders and the next it was flying off the path into the rocks beyond. Since the drone was only half materialised it rapidly disintegrated into its component atoms as the Engineer’s body fell to the ground dead.

  Selfia’s impromptu signal unleashed an avalanche of pent up loss, anguish and fury as the Concord pilots took out their retribution upon the Scourge in full force. As the trap sprung shut, the initial barrage violently wrenched apart over half of the Scourge warriors. The intense emotional distress that many of the pilots experienced during the recent battle to save Freehold was carried on every beam, bullet and rocket.

  With a roar that would rival even a Juggernaut, Tiny bellowed various obscenities about the Scourge’s mothers, as he jetted into the air and landed with a thump into the middle of the path. His mighty chain gun let out a low groan as it disgorged its contents towards one enemy after another.

  Acheron had the same stupid grin on his face he always got when he was in battle. He was an intensely focused berserker, which made him one of the most impressive Concord pilots ever to don a battleframe. A torrent of depleted tellurite greeted a Sniper that tried to slink into the undergrowth, tossing it head over heels a number of times until it did not even twitch.

  The Scourge were not cowards and they were not stupid. They realised that they were doomed and fought with the recklessness of a rat in a trap, which knows that unless it chews its own leg off it will never be free. Three Juggernauts managed to fire a broadside of plasma at two of Acheron’s squad but a quick thinking Concord Rook engineer rapidly deployed a shield, which took the brunt of the attack. Plasma cascaded over the force field in a bright pyrotechnic display and slid to the ground with a bubbling hiss.

  A couple of Scourge Shock troopers focused their fire on a Concord Recon in Tiny’s squad that shredded the pilot’s chest plate. Luckily, a Concord Medic battleframe leapt in and instantly administered booster nanomeds and nanites into both the damaged battleframe and pilot while the two Shock troopers met their maker courtesy of one of Tiny’s onslaughts.

  The battle was quickly over and it was not long before the last sounds of gunfire could be heard echoing off the surrounding hillsides. Selfia jump-jetted down to her squad to ensure there were not any serious injuries. Incredibly, all her squad members were completely unscathed.

  Tilting her head towards her comnet microphone she said, “Squads, report in!”

  “We’re G2G here Self,” Acheron quickly replied.

  This was immediately followed by Tiny’s deep baritone voice, “Same here, we’re G2G as well.”

  Selfia sighed in relief. Twenty battle hardened Scourge taken out in a few minutes and not an eport or serious problem amongst any of the frames. That was more than she could possibly have hoped.

  “Acheron, Tiny, have your squads form up behind me and send your Recons to scout out our flanks just in case we’ve missed any Scourge friends. We’ve got to…”

  A voice burst over the comnet, interrupting Selfia’s order, “Digger crew ready for orders.”

  “Selfia, Sierra, Alpha, Romeo, four, seven. Who is speaking?” Selfia stated in a level voice.

  “Umm, ahh, Gardner, five, five, five, five,” replied the deceptively calm voice.

  Selfia’s brow furrowed, they were unusual call-sign numbers. No time to worry about that now. She glanced at the friend or foe indicator on her wrist-comp and saw with relief that it still flashed green. This meant that Gardner checked out for both voice and digital identity. In the early days of the Alpha Three war, many frames lost their lives to ambushes that were instigated by false Scou
rge broadcasts. Since then the Blue Sky research team developed a system where every Concord battleframe had an encoded digital under-signal that automatically broadcast when they engaged the comnet. This signal combined with the voice identity check allowed other battleframes to know they were not speaking to a potential Scourge trap. The result was many Scourge ambushing teams ambushed themselves.

  “State your position Gardner,” Selfia asked.

  “We’re about half a click north of you and inbound.”

  Selfia turned to look northward for sign of Gardner as she said, “Who are you speaking for?”

  Gardner’s voice seemed to be a lot firmer now as his battle training kicked in, “There’s six of us here from the digging crews sent out last night. The Scourge swept in here a few hours after we started mining and after a short skirmish we sent our Diggers skyward and high-tailed it out of there. Ever since then we’ve been trying to get back to Free without tripping over our ‘old friends’. The noise of your little battle and the fact that the static in the comnet had stopped caught our attention.”

  The digging crews were often some of the toughest most resourceful battleframe pilots in the Concord. They had to be, as they often deliberately placed themselves in harm’s way, to mine precious resources and tellurite for a little profit. Diggers were similar to giant drills that extracted resources from the ground and could be called down from the Concord orbiting satellite to any location on Alpha Three. When a Digger commenced mining, the vibrations attracted every creature or Scourge within a click. The principle job of a digging crew was not to operate the fully automated Digger, but to protect it from attack.

  Selfia smiled as she said, “CT Gardner. It’s good to hear that you guys are all in one piece. I’d appreciate you making it quick as we’re on a strict time frame here.”

  “CT Selfia. See you in thirty seconds.”

  Placing her scope to her eye Selfia again scanned to the north looking for signs of Gardner and his team as they jump jetted towards her squads. Eight hundred meters away three indigenous Spyderlynx sunned their dark hard outer bodies on a large boulder. Other than the giant crustaceans, there was not any sign of life.