Mech Wars: The Complete Series

by Scott Bartlett

  “What do you call the object that covers a floor?” asked the black-eyed Quatro.

  “Uh, carpet?” Lisa said. “A rug?”

  The Quatro paused, seeming to consider Lisa’s offering.

  “Rug,” she said. “I will be Rug.”

  The other Quatro chose similar names, after everyday objects. “Table.” “Faucet.” “Lamp.”

  Other than being hilarious, the names also made sense, in a way. They reflected how the Quatro saw themselves: as unremarkable entities that sought to be useful to those around them.

  “They’re totally selfless,” Tessa said. “Some people would call that admirable. Although, most of those people live in the Milky Way.”

  Even though Lisa thought of Rug as the Quatro “leader,” she wasn’t, not really. The Quatro had no leaders. They each mulled endlessly over what was best for the drift, what the drift needed, and then they spent the rest of their time trying to fill that need as best they knew how. No leader was required for that, apparently.

  Lisa’s father had always taught her that selfishness was actually a virtue, which kept a society running smoothly. If everyone pursued their own rational self-interest, then the economy worked itself out, and everyone prospered. Everyone who deserved to, anyway.

  In fact, people back in the Milky Way hadn’t properly valued selfishness, and that was a big part of why Darkstream had been forced to leave.

  The Quatro don’t have a selfish bone in their bodies, and look how they ended up. Stranded underground on an inhospitable planet, barely kept alive by technology that constantly seemed to be breaking down.

  Take the turtle-shaped Quatro vehicle that trundled along behind them as they crossed Alex, which Andy had taken to calling “the Dome.”

  It broke down twice during the journey—once because it stalled out while trying to get up a particularly steep hill, and a second time because of a faulty engine part.

  The aliens seemed used to occurrences like this, though, since they carried around a considerable store of spare parts, from which Lisa assumed they would attempt to fix the beetle.

  The Dome also featured an oxygenated compartment that could hold two Quatro in tight quarters, should their pressure suits fail. The blue Quatro pressure suit was a thing of wonder, even Lisa had to admit. In addition to preventing the wearers from suffocating, it also supplied their bodies with nutrients on the move, kept them hydrated, and converted their waste into energy, which was efficient but also kind of gross.

  Even so…

  “You’re clearly doing something wrong, to have ended up stranded on Alex,” Lisa told Rug point-blank. “These Meddlers sound like real jerks, but they must have been stronger than you, and that’s probably because they look out for themselves instead of worrying about the needs of others so much.”

  “Do you truly believe strength means ignoring the needs of others? If so, perhaps we should have left you and your friends to suffocate on the surface of Alex.” The Quatro translator was getting a lot better, as it collected more data on human language.

  “Well, sure,” Lisa said. “But you needed us, or so you said. The Meddlers probably had no need of you.”

  “They need us now.”

  “They do? For what?”

  “To show them mercy.”

  Lisa shook her head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Maybe the translator wasn’t working as well as she thought.

  “For them to continue living, they will need us to show them great mercy. Because currently, we intend to kill them.”

  That, Lisa hadn’t expected to hear from Rug. It sent her into a thoughtful silence, which the Quatro eventually interrupted. “Our first objective is to escape this system, before the Meddlers return. We cannot beat them with our current might. But we can return with more weapons, more ships, and when we do, we can look for clues that will help us track them to their home and make them pay for what they did to us.”

  The next day, they found the beetle, which was already covered by an inch-thick layer of blue dust.

  Without hesitation, the Quatro got to work.

  Chapter 42

  Red Company

  The entire battalion rolled out from Ingress as dawn lit the land with shades of gray.

  They’d received word of Quatro moving toward a nearby settlement, called New Gower, and luckily for the settlement, they had a long-standing contract with Darkstream.

  While the entire strike force deployed to intercept the Quatro, nothing could travel faster than the mechs, which bounded over the terrain with virtually limitless energy.

  That energy worried Gabe, who’d ordered his entire team out of their mechs after they’d finished helping with clean up after the Battle of Ingress. Before bed, he’d subjected them to two hours of hard PT.

  The dream did simulate effort and exertion when controlling the mech, however that was balanced out by the mech’s immense power, so that you only felt as taxed as a being the size and strength of a MIMAS mech would feel.

  Either way, those actions required nothing of your body, beyond what calories its basil metabolic rate burned through. That meant their bodies would wither away, if they let them.

  And part of Gabe wanted to let them. Part of him never wanted to leave his mech, where he dreamed he was mighty, without peer—a dream that happened to be true.

  When he looked in the eyes of his team, he saw that sentiment reflected in them, and that only made him even more adamant about making sure they spent ample time actually using their bodies to get some damned exercise.

  Originally, he’d only planned to make them do ninety minutes. But after Henrietta took it upon herself to mutter, “Thought we were done with this after training,” Gabe heaped on another thirty.

  “I told you I planned to maintain total authority,” Gabe barked, pacing up and down the line of them doing push ups. “Did you think that meant I’d hold your hand while reading you bedtime stories?”

  He’d gotten no more complaints, and that satisfied him. So he dropped to the ground and joined them.

  Now, the ground rushed past beneath his exquisitely engineered feet, which had better balance than his human ones. They were molded for peerless locomotion.

  When the team encountered a copse of trees, instead of bothering to run around, they charged through. A tree of middling size reared up before Gabe, which would have forced him to choose another path, if he hadn’t been willing to barrel straight into it, splintering it into a shower of a thousand fragments.

  The Quatro would not stop them, and neither would Eresos. He felt like he’d already bent them both to his will.

  Ahead, the tips of the settlement’s buildings crested the horizon, and less than a minute later, they arrived.

  The village was surrounded by a ring of Quatro corpses.

  Oneiri Team slowed, wary of running into whoever had killed the Quatro, but also of causing undue damage to the property of a Darkstream client as they strode between the buildings.

  A village green sat at the center of town, and there they found a foursome of men in motley dress, sitting at a picnic table, each heavily armed.

  “Who are you?” Gabe said, the mech amplifying his voice so that it became a deafening bellow. The other mechs spread out, servomotors buzzing as they surveyed the surrounding buildings.

  The largest of the men—which was saying something—rose to his feet, hands on hips. Pistols hung from crisscrossed holsters not far from those hands, and the barrel of an SL-17 poked over his shoulder.

  “Well, I’m Saul. As for these others, all you need to know is that we’re all soldiers of Red Company.”

  “Never heard of it,” Gabe said.

  “And I’ll never have to listen to you say that again, will I? You’ve heard of Red Company now, you big metal bastard, and you’ll keep hearing of us. We just finished saving New Gower from the Quatro, and we’re just getting warmed up.”

  “New Gower has a contract with Darkstream.”

&nb
sp; “Wrong. They had a contract with Darkstream. Now they have one with us.”

  “Bull. Why would they break a deal with the leading defense contractor in the system?”

  “Little thing I like to call market competition. I know you haven’t had to experience that since arriving in this system, but you’d better get used to it, because our terms aren’t nearly as ridiculous as yours.”

  “Our contract contained some pretty serious repercussions for violating it. New Gower’s council knows that.”

  Reaching behind his back, Saul unlimbered the assault rifle, holding it casually across his chest. “They also know that we’ll protect them from you, too, if need be.”

  Gabe laughed. “You can’t withstand Darkstream. We’ll crush you.”

  “Actually, with a war brewing between you and the Quatro, I expect we probably can. But go ahead. Try to fight us. We have contingents stationed all over Eresos. See what happens to the contracts we haven’t poached yet when you leave your clients to the Quatro while you attempt to put us down.”

  The other three joined Saul in standing. One of them held a rocket launcher, which he leveled straight at the face of Gabe’s mech.

  Richaud stepped forward, leveling twin autocannons at the man threatening Gabe. “Let’s waste ’em, sir.”

  “Before you do,” Saul said, “you may want to have another look around.”

  Gabe did, and so did the other mech pilots. Men and women as shabbily dressed as the four before them revealed themselves from positions all around—narrow alleys, doorways, rooftops. Most of them bore heavy artillery, including rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and at least two heavy machine guns on tripods.

  Gabe turned back to glare at Saul, though of course the man wouldn’t see the expression.

  “You haven’t seen what the MIMAS mechs can do,” Gabe growled.

  “Neither have you, I expect,” the man said, as calm as ever. “You haven’t experienced their full potential, and neither have you learned their limitations. If you want to see how you do against the heat we’re packing, be my guest. We’re eager for the challenge. But consider what kind of message it’ll send to the clients you have left, when you tear New Gower apart in an effort to get all of us. Consider what Bronson might have to say to you, if you don’t have the brain cells to put it together yourself.”

  “How do you know Bronson?”

  “We know a lot more about you than you do about us, evidently.”

  Even in the dream, Gabe’s body felt hot with anger. But Saul was right. Engaging here, now, without seeing how the board felt about it…it wasn’t a good idea.

  “Wait until the Quatro come in force,” Gabe said. “See how cocky you feel then.”

  “We’ll take them.”

  “You’ll die. You don’t have mechs.”

  Saul smiled. “Maybe we’ll end up with some soon enough. Where do you think we got these guns?” The burly man hefted his gun a little. “Stay safe, you hear?”

  As Oneiri Team jogged out of New Gower, followed by the raucous laughter of Red Company, Gabe got in touch with Bronson. The man appeared, and the dream rendered him hovering along the ground near Gabe to keep pace.

  He flushed scarlet when Gabe told him the news—a rare departure from his usual sarcasm-laced calm.

  “How dare they,” he seethed. “They have no idea what’s coming to them! Way tougher men than them have gotten what they deserved after screwing with me.”

  “Their leader seemed to imply they got their artillery from Darkstream. I recognized an SL-17 strapped to his back.”

  Bronson grimaced, but seemed to take a deep breath, regaining some of his composure. “Like hell they got it from Darkstream. They got theirs the same way the Quatro got theirs—by killing. We’ll deal with this Red Company soon, but we can’t just yet. There are reports of Quatro massing near Plenitos, Roach. We’re expecting an attack—the worst one yet. I need you to assemble the reserve battalion and start making preparations to begin the journey there.”

  Chapter 43

  So Long as the Walls Hold

  It had taken a week and a half to get the battalion marshaled and ready for the journey south to Eresos’ capital, with the supplies that such a trip would require.

  After that, their nonlinear route through the complex system of Gatherer paths combined with the distance between the two cities meant the journey south lasted nearly two months.

  By that time, the siege of Plenitos was already well underway.

  Plenitos had been built on a lake, which, Gabe had read on the system net, was larger than the biggest Great Lake back on Old Earth.

  Trying to access it by land would have been stupid, given the legion of Quatro that surrounded it, but the aliens had no water craft, giving the mech pilots full access to the city—along with any other human who cared to cross the water. The crossing would take four days, but it was better than getting intercepted by the enemy.

  As a barge neared the beach where they waited, Gabe smirked within the dream.

  If the Quatro wanted to pull off an actual siege, they’d have to surround the entire lake. No matter how many numbers they have, there’s no way they can support that.

  His smirk soon faded, however.

  That could mean they don’t expect their siege to last very long. Meaning they think they have a way inside the city.

  The city had been built atop solid rock, making tunneling difficult. Maybe the Quatro were too stupid to have figured that out in advance.

  And not so long ago, he would have believed that. But not now. The aliens were proving themselves to be more formidable with every passing day.

  And the sheer number of them that had gathered to pressure Plenitos—that was the truly staggering thing. On the satellite images of the city and the surrounding area, which Bronson had sent Gabe to review on his implant, the Quatro presence appeared as a single dark mass.

  As he stepped onto the sturdy barge, he was surprised to notice Arkady Black standing near the bow.

  The man was a fellow Darkstream employee, a captain, and also head of the security force charged with protecting Plenitos. Of every contract the company held in the Steele System, this one was the most lucrative, and the board had trusted Black with its execution.

  Gabe strode over to the man, coming to attention and saluting.

  “Not so close,” Arkady said, holding up a warning hand. “Back up a step, Roach. You don’t know how imposing you are inside that thing.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Gabe took a step back, bumping into Henrietta Jin, who’d followed too closely behind.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “There’s not much room on this tub, you know. Not with all of us here.”

  “Shut up,” he muttered, then turned back to face Black. “I’m surprised to find you aboard, sir. We could have easily conducted a war meeting via lucid, or even using our implants.”

  Arkady Black barked laughter. “I suppose I should have expected a man who signed up to be a robot would place that much trust in technology. Here’s how this is actually going to go: you’re going to step out of that mech and switch off your implant. Then you’re going to join me belowdecks, in a chamber I’ve had swept for bugs.”

  Gabe tried not to sound as hesitant as he felt: “I don’t think the Quatro have the tech to intercept our communications, sir.”

  “We don’t know what they have, Roach. They’ve already surprised us a hundred times since last Tuesday. Plus, we have this infernal Red Company to contend with, now, and we already know how crafty humans are.” Black’s bushy eyebrows knitted together. “I’m confident you’ll follow the order I’ve given you, Roach, but I’m beginning to wonder about promptness. Has living inside a hunk of metal made you forget about the importance of the chain of command?”

  “No, sir.” Gabe ordered the mech to inject his body with the sedative’s antagonist, and then he crawled backward down the ramp that unfurled to let him out, his legs moving rather stiffly. After spending the jo
urney to Plenitos inside the mech, other than nightly PT with the rest of Oneiri, Gabe had developed a distinct reluctance to leave the machine. Outside it, he felt diminished.

  That’s dangerous. After this battle, we need a long break from the MIMAS mechs.

  Black met him at the side of the mech, saluting for the first time. Gabe saluted back, which made the captain smile.

  “Good to see an actual salute, from an actual human being.” The smile faltered, then, as he caught sight of the track marks dotting Gabe’s bare forearm. “You look like a junkie, son.”

  “Part of the job, sir.”

  “Hmm.”

  The chamber Black had selected for their meeting must have been pretty easy to sweep for bugs, considering how tiny it was. A school desk of a table made for the only furniture, and both men loomed over it, studying a single-use tablet where Black called up battle plans.

  “So long as the walls hold, we’re fine, in theory,” Black said, running his finger along the thick, dark line that indicated them. “The Quatro can’t tunnel here, as I’m sure you’ve figured out already, and the walls are strong. But they must be gathering for a reason.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Either way, we can’t very well let them camp out in front of the walls of Plenitos. The citizens are feeling pretty spunky right now—we’ve rallied them with talk of resistance, justice, and a little vengeance sprinkled in. Even the beggars are getting into the spirit of things. It won’t last, though. Letting Quatro trample the fields in front of Plenitos is a sign of weakness, and one we can’t afford to let go on for long. Darkstream must continue to be seen as the dominant force in the system, which is doubly important with these cursed mercenaries springing up like weeds.”

  “Why do you think they’re acting now, sir? They’ve always just roamed the countryside, attacking the weakest villages—the ones too poor to do anything but provide for their own defense.”

  Black nodded. “Such as it is. But I’m surprised to hear you asking me this question, Roach. The reverse seems much likelier. You have Bronson’s ear more than almost anyone, and Bronson has the board’s.”